Roomies sequel
by GotchaYouLilDirtbag
Summary: A working title really! Sequel to Roomies I started, but didn't finish, a time ago. It follows on from Roomies almost straight away and dips in and out of cannon. Again, some chapters are rated M for sex scenes - be warned! I didn't finish this, but if enough people want me to continue I will. So please review. There are several chapters already done, so I will put them up.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The day was a drowsy one: soft warm sun, nice light breeze, lazy ocean humming under its breath like a mother murmuring a lullaby and nothing to do but lie there and bask in al it. And Kate intended to do just that: all day. No chores. No arguments. No jungle hikes. No fear. No pain. Just for today she was giving herself a break to lie around the beach in a prolonged haze of lethargic bliss. Until sunset that was: and then she would move inside and continue being blissful, just perhaps in a different, less lethargic sort of way. She smiled to herself and rubbed her cheek against her living pillow.

She and Sawyer had slept through all of yesterday, either in the tent or out here in the sun, and it was shaping up to be another repeat today which suited her just fine. She hadn't realised just how exhausted she was, how tense, until she had the opportunity just to stop. Now, lying peaceful and sleepy, using Sawyer's stomach as a cushion she let herself relax completely - all except for her hand. That, she slid underneath the untucked tails of his shirt, to splay around the now familiar curve of his flank. Her smiled broadened.

"What are you smiling at?" Her pillow suddenly murmured.

"Nothing." She replied, knowing full well that such a reply would make him crazy. She opened her eyes to look up at him where he lay propped against the side of the airplane chair, his latest book open and face down on his chest, and wearing ridiculous women's glasses that he had been given to him by Sayid as a sort of welcome back present. He looked as sleepy as she felt, and regarded her through heavy lidded eyes.

"Must be something." He went on, taking the bait.

"Nope."

"Fine." He said and returned to his book. Kate started counting to herself: one, two, three – "Oh come on Freckles, people don't just lie around smilin' like that for no reason." He said, taking the glasses off, his brow furrowing. She laughed, which only made things worse. God, he was so cute when he was frustrated with curiosity. A sudden rush of tenderness washed through her and she kissed his belly through his shirt.

"Read your book, James." She used the new name gently and deliberately, caressing him under the thin blue material. His gaze immediately softened. The muscles of his stomach flexed under her cheek as he curled toward her. She rose to meet the tender kiss she could suddenly see written all over his face, but he stopped just before making contact:

"Tell me." He whispered, expression shifting into a familiar foxy grin.

"No." She whispered back, all of a sudden holding in a laugh. She suddenly felt very silly, as if she might take off like a playful dog up and down the beach with Sawyer in similar pursuit – all in front of a startled audience that was still not entirely at ease with this new development – running and circling and pouncing and wrestling until things inevitably heated up again.

"Ooh, stubborn. Think I'm gonna have to resort to extreme measures." He tried to land that kiss. Only this time, it was Kate who pulled away. She jumped up from the sand and he watched her go, startled.

"If you can catch me." She backed away from him, watching his face, watching the playful grin become hot with desire. She backed up again, and ran into something solid. She bounced off, spinning around.

"Oh! Oh, uh Jack."

"Kate." The doctor greeted her with a nod, expression part neutral, part pained, part angry. Very much trying to be the professional, but unable to look at her for more than a moment. She felt her sun retreat behind a cloud.

"Doc." Sawyer greeted Jack, rising to his feet. His morning playfulness had been replaced with something that wasn't entirely friendly either. Kate felt herself grow tense. "Mornin'."

"Antibiotics." Jack offered by way of greeting. He unscrewed the bottle he was carrying, tapped out a white pill and dropped it into Sawyer's hand. The air was as thick as paste. "How is it this morning?"

"Hurts and its starting to itch." Sawyer reported. "Thanks for askin'."

"Let me see it." Jack ordered, unshouldering his backpack. Kate folded her arms across her ribs and watched as Sawyer shrugged out of his shirt and sat on the airplane seat. Jack pulled away the old bandage and went into doctor mode. He cleaned and redressed the wound without saying another word – neither did Sawyer, though he kept a sharp eye on the other man as he worked.

"It's fine. No sign of infection. You can put your shirt back on. Do you need something for the pain?"

"Nope. Can take care of that myself." Sawyer responded, obediently putting on his shirt. He stood back up to button the garment.

"Actually," Jack said after a millisecond hesitation. "You can't."

"What does that mean?" Sawyer frowned. Oh shit. Kate suddenly remembered, a day after the raft had sailed, the moment that John had come out of the jungle with Sawyer's secret stockpile. She remembered him dumping it right in the middle of the camp. She remembered everyone divvying it up…

"It means you can't Sawyer." Jack replied with complete seriousness. "After the raft sailed. We found your stash-"

"You what?"

"We found it," Jack went on, "and I took back all the medical supplies that you stole from the plane."

"That I 'stole' from the plane!" Sawyer took a step forward, the morning frost melting into hot midday anger. "That I 'stole'? The dead don't own anything to be stolen, Doc. You're the goddamn thief in this picture. What I 'found' on that plane is mine."

"No Sawyer, it's the groups'. Especially the medical supplies." Jack replied evenly, although Kate could suddenly hear the cold anger in his voice. "You wouldn't be alive now if we hadn't found your hidey-hole."

"Put it back." Sawyer suddenly demanded, brows lowered.

"What?" Jack exclaimed, almost laughing with disbelief. And perhaps a little enjoyment in the fact that he had been able to so thoroughly piss the other man off. "No. We can't. Sawyer, it's all gone. You don't have a stash anymore so just get used to it."

The southerner stepped forward, but Jack did not move back, and suddenly the two men were an inch apart. One furious beyond reason, the other a radiating a false calm that was beginning to feel more and more like the second before a storm hits.

"Stop it!" Kate suddenly interjected. "Stop it both of you." She grabbed Sawyer's arm.

"Soon as he gives back what's mine." Sawyer replied and Jack's calm started to change into pure contempt.

"Is that a threat? Are you actually threatening me?"

"Only if that's the way it's got to be Doc. Just give me back what's mine and we'll let bygones be bygones."

"Go to hell, Sawyer." The doctor replied, not giving an inch. "And just so we're both clear: if you try to take any of it back, I'm going to carry through on the promise I made to you."

"I'd like to see you try." Sawyer responded heatedly, but somehow that vague threat had unsettled the southerner so that the sharp edge to his voice disappeared. Kate stared, apprehensively between both men. What had happened between them whilst she had been recuperating in the Hatch?

"No, you wouldn't Sawyer." Jack replied softly. He hoisted his backpack back over one shoulder; he pocketed the antibiotics and turned to leave. "No, you wouldn't." He repeated, and Sawyer watched him trudge away up the beach.

"What was that about?" She asked when Jack was out of earshot.

"Did you know?" Sawyer asked her, ignoring her question and still watching Jack walking away up the beach.

"Did I- What?"

"Did you know about him stealing my stuff?" He asked again. Kate swallowed, knowing where this was heading and dreading it.

"He didn't steal your stuff. John found it and brought it into the camp." She started. "Everyone-"

"And you?" He asked like he might have been asking about a weather forecast.

"Everyone." She repeated quietly, feeling as ashamed as if she was admitting some heinous sin in confessional although she wasn't Catholic and Sawyer was surely no priest. And anyway she hadn't actually stolen anything anyway because that stash had never been his – Jack was right about that. Not that Sawyer would see things that way, and not that she would stop feeling edgy about it. She watched his expression darken further, feeling helpless. "Everyone." She repeated.

He didn't reply and she watched his profile as he continued to stare after the doctor as the Jack stopped to speak to the new woman, Ana Lucia, before walking with her into the jungle. Kate watched the newcomer as she left with Jack and frowned. Something was going on between those two and she didn't like it. They knew nothing about any of the new arrivals and yet there he was… The seconds ticked passed and he did nothing.

Finally she could not stand Sawyer's brooding silence any longer.

"We figured you wouldn't need that stuff anymore, if you were bringing help." She started. "I mean-"

"I know what you mean Freckles." He suddenly said, finally turning to look at her. His expression was curiously flat, as was his tone, which was odd and not in a good way. "Its just people being people, is all. I left it behind, so it stands to reason I lose it. That's life." She frowned, suddenly remembering John's story about the foster home children hoarding their possessions. But also thinking that this was more than that. She wondered again just what promise Jack had threatened Sawyer with.

"It wasn't like that, Sawy- I mean James. Sorry that's going to take some time to get used to." She smiled, hoping to get an answering smile from him. She didn't and her unease grew. She stopped smiling. "It wasn't like that. We didn't take it because you left it. We took it because we needed it. And you didn't." God, that lame reasoning wasn't going to help any – it just echoed his own reasoning and ended up with the same result. She bit her lip. How could she make him understand?

"Yeah, I heard you." Sawyer suddenly reached for her, grasping her forearms and pulling her to him. He put her hands around his waist and put his own around hers. There was a faint grin on his lips that didn't look entirely forced. "Its just stuff. Don't sweat it darlin', I ain't mad at you or anybody else on this rock, and I ain't about to go chargin' around gettin' it all back." He paused to slide his hands down over her backside and squeeze. "Too lazy for that. Besides, got better things to do than that now." He kissed her with heated purpose. She kissed him back and tried to ignore blazing red warning light that was going off inside her head.

End chapter


	2. Chapter 2

OK, this chapter is at times serious M (sex) so please be warned and don't read it if you don't like that sort of thing. Its told in two parts: first Sawyer's, then Kate's.

Chapter 2

"Howdy boys." Sawyer greeted Jack and Locke from outside of the small room that both men had jammed themselves into. It was a long cramped space, made even more narrow by the brand new shelves that John 'Toolman' Locke and Dr Hammer must had just installed. But the thing that made Sawyer hesitate in the doorway, and stand there with his jaw slack, was not the quality of the carpentry but the contents of the room: the guns. There were a lot of guns of all sizes and makes arranged on the shelves and in neat bundles all over the floor. And, he noted, all the very best party favours that went with such a fine collection. He stared, admiring - calculating. "Plannin' another huntin' trip?" He asked.

What the hell is this 'Hatch'?

"Sawyer." Locke greeted him from just inside the doorway where he was poking awkwardly at a new lock, screwdriver in hand. He was a considerable sized man, and in the confined space he had to keep his elbows in to avoid braining his companion who was squatting in front of a stack of long rifles. The older man seemed relieved to take a break. "No, no more hunting.

"How's your shoulder?" He asked.

"It's fine."

"And Kate?" Locke asked him in such an offhand, friendly manner that for a moment Sawyer almost answered him in kind. But he remembered the small matter of Locke robbing him blind and he felt Jack glaring at him, even though the doctor hadn't even looked up from the stack of weapons at his feet, and the moment dissipated like so much ocean spray.

"Finer than fine." He said, examining Jack's profile, looking for signs that that deliberate stab had struck home, but Jack did not react, nor did he pause as he examined another long rifle with far more deftness than any doctor should possess. Weren't doctors supposed to hate guns? Something was up. "What's with the arsenal Ché?"

"We're making it secure." Jack finally acknowledged his presence, but he did not stop playing with the gun. Sawyer's eyes narrowed. Then Locke started fiddling with the door again and Sawyer suddenly registered that the awkwardness that he had seen in the man's posture was not because of the space in the room nor the height of the mechanism embedded in the wood, but rather his fellow handyman. He watched the older man work for a second, noting the unease and the hyperaware movements that told Sawyer that all was not well in the Brotherhood. Curiouser and curiouser.

"Secure against what? The 'Others'?" Sawyer asked, hiding his curiosity with sarcasm. "Or the good folks of Gilligan's Island?" Jack didn't answer either question, but the silence was pointed and Sawyer almost smiled.

"Sawyer, what do you want?" Jack suddenly asked him, anger starting to heat his words. "I just gave you your meds."

"Take it easy Doc." He said, suddenly mild, and brandished his book – careful to hide the actual title. His next move was dependent on it. "Just dropped by to visit the library. Seems guns and ammo don't do much for the fairer sex. Gotta find something with a bit more frills and lace or it's nothin' but the stars for company tonight." Jack clearly did not believe him, but his baiting was warming the surgeon's anger. Jack put his rifle on the shelf nearest him. "Maybe you shoulda thought of this before." He southerner goaded, still in that same mild tone.

"Before when?" Jack demanded: angry and on the offensive.

"Before Mike did."

"How did you know about that?"

"How else? The crazy sonnavabitch just stuck one of your precious firesticks right in my damned face."

"What?" Jack stepped away from the shelves and came out of the room. Sawyer straightened up to meet the advance. "You saw Michael? In the jungle?"

"Yeah."

"You expect me to believe that?" Jack demanded. "We tracked – Locke tracked - him into the jungle ahead of you, we came halfway back before we ran into you, you can't follow a trail and you expect us to believe that you just ran into Michael?"

"I don't give two shits what you believe Doc. An' I ain't got no expectations far as you're concerned, 'cept one: that you're gonna back off and get out of my face. Right now."

"Jack." Locke suddenly spoke up warningly. And as usual, once alerted to his slipped façade, the doctor jumped back into his civilised face and zipped himself up tighter than a fish's asshole: water tight. Sawyer watched the transformation and the retreat with carefully concealed interest – this was what made the doc so easy to manipulate and, paradoxically, so difficult to control. It was always difficult to maintain a good con around believers of any sort, whether they were the religious type or held to rigid and righteous notions of their own personal world order. The sheer overwhelming intensity of their beliefs made it wearying in the extreme to maintain the required front, and the slightest misstep usually spelled the end of even the most elegant scam right away. Never stopped him from trying them out though – the challenge was irresistible. "Where did you see Michael?" Locke went on.

"In the jungle." Sawyer replied, deliberately obtuse, and still staring Jack. "Offered to go with him to find his kid, but the man's on a mission and there ain't no room for company when folks get that missionary bug up their ass. Ain't that right Jack?"

"Why didn't you try to bring him back?" Jack demanded, ignoring the dig.

"Now why would I do that?" Sawyer frowned. "Man's got a right to protect what's his."

"Right. And you'd know all about that wouldn't you Sawyer?" Jack laughed without humour, voice filled with some high emotion that was near indecipherable. But the intensity of the strange passion that was making his voice break off at the edges like dirt falling from a precipice had just landed Sawyer a perfect opportunity. And Sawyer always had prided himself on never letting a good opportunity pass him by.

He didn't even need to use words. Jack was so keyed up all it took was one smug look. And the good doctor hit him.

Perfect.

LOSTLOSTLOSTLOST

"He hit you?"

"That's what I said didn't I?"

"And you did nothing to make him hit you?"

"No, goddamnit. Ow! Sonnavabitch!"

"And it had nothing to do with Jack taking your stuff back?" Kate ignored his protest, held his chin in an even tighter grip, and dabbed disinfectant over the reopened cut on his cheek. He blinked and squinted. Involuntary tears pricked at his eyes.

"No. I told you I don't want it back." He growled. "I ain't happy about it, but I told you: things are different now." She didn't believe him that was clear. But she wanted to, and that was also clear. He took both her hands in his and lowered them from his face. "We're different now. And Jack's just going to have to deal with that. It ain't gonna be a smooth road. Never is with us men folk-"

"Sawyer, if you are going to tell me that Jack hitting you was over me, then-"

"No. I ain't saying that Freckles. It's just-" he paused, pursed his lips and frowned, glancing away from her and then back. "Forget it." He dropped her hands and took her face gently between them. He brought their lips close. "This place: it just makes folks crazy is all. All that's happened… And maybe, just maybe – I ain't sayin' it's necessarily so – I kinda make people even crazier from time to time."

"Just 'maybe'?" Kate almost smiled at him. She was still perturbed, but he could hear that need to believe him in her voice like a siren call. He smiled back and winced as it pulled on his bruised and cut cheek. "How about 'maybe' you just control yourself for a little while?" She said as she touched his wounded face and her voice turned whisper serious. "I've had just about as much as I can take seeing you like this."

They touched lips, slow and lingering and soft. Sawyer watched Kate's eyes close. Against her tanned skin her lashes were the soft black of ash smudges. Her hands floated upward to land on his chest.

When they parted for air he drew her into a hug. She held him in return, her arms a tight warm circle around his back. He looked over her head at the rest of the camp. It was getting on passed midday and people were out and busy doing whatever the hell they did during the day: drifting around doing little bits of nothing much because none of them had yet adjusted to this life and none of them knew just what the hell to do with themselves once they had stuffed their mouths with their morning mangoes. Without a clock to punch and a TV to stare at, and despite the threatening tangle of hostile jungle that pressed into the camp from three sides and pirate filled ocean on the forth, they were like rudderless ships drifting along in no particular direction, with no particular purpose except to eat more mangoes. He watched the dozen or so people who were visible along the beach and frowned. Well, they had found something to do since he had been gone: pilfering his stash. Correction, helping themselves to his stash that Locke had pilfered.

He hadn't even thought about his precious suitcases until Jack mentioned them, but now they were all he could think about. He ran his eyes over the tents, looking for evidence of their thieving, but nothing was visible. Likely it was all used up and gone with forty odd people using it up. Bastards had been flashing crocodile smiles at him all this time and he had not picked it. Fuck! They had robbed him. Conned him. And he had been so fucking off kilter, feeling things he'd never allowed himself to acknowledge let alone expose to someone else, that he had just assumed that the unease he had felt around them all had been an extension of that same apprehension. Now he knew different. And he had Jack, of all people, to thank for that. He stared stonily at the camp.

Things were changing again.

"Your exercises." Kate suddenly prompted him, leaning back from his chest. Her voice was smiling at him, even if her mouth wasn't yet entirely free of that frown. He looked down at her and suddenly was consumed by her: god, she was magnificent. But rather than make him glow inside as it had done yesterday, the thought filled him with hollow despair. He looked into her eyes searching for her crocodile, the one that had helped herself to his stash along with everyone else and smiled at him afterward, but he saw only the blue that had filled his world for the last few days and made everything seem so different, so new. Instead of reassuring him, however, his inability to see into her only made him more unsettled. What else was he not seeing in those beautiful eyes? He suddenly wanted to forget his plans and take off, fearful as a jackrabbit. "Sawyer?" She pressed him for an answer, and he felt himself responding to it like a seasoned actor woken from a deep sleep to resume his mark.

"Yeah: exercises." He breathed, and tried to kiss her again, his hands wandering around her back, feeling the fine muscles and soft skin underneath the thin singlet top. He smiled. "Exercising…"

"No, Sawyer, you need to 'do' your exercises. Physiotherapy. Rehab. Strengthening-" He chuckled at her. "God, you've got a one track mind."

"Complainin'?" He asked, letting his voice out in a low rumble. When she didn't immediately answer he chuckled again, smug and cocky and proud despite everything, and pulled her even closer to him. "Didn't think so."

"Sawyer-"

She was using his old name, but he did not mind it. Since he had told her his real name he noticed that she had been treating it like something precious: to be spoken aloud only in the most intimate of moments. And in doing that it had also become code for so much more than just that simple word, and the way she said it – god, the way she said it – felt like she was reaching right inside him, caressing and kissing him in a strange deep place that he still could not put a name too. So it seemed more than fitting that she not use it now, with Jacko's footprints still intermingled with theirs in the sand, messing up the exclusive intimacy that made things just right for her to say that magic word. And it felt just right now that things were changing again.

They did the exercises.

"God!" He cursed as his shoulder was guided through a series of mangling contortions that he was damned sure it had never been built to do. "Are you sure Dr Mengle knows what he's doing with these exercises? Thought he was supposed to be a surgeon, not a physiotherapist."

"Jack knows what he's doing."

"Sure he does- Ow! Damn it."

"Take it easy Sawyer. Slow down."

Afterwards, he picked up where he had left off, drawing her along a trail of kisses back into his tent, guiding her down onto the bed and making things just right for her to believe him, and to say that magic word again. When she did he felt the shuddering sweetness of it deep inside, but there was something else there too now: a sting, a bitter burn, like the first breath upon waking in the aching chill of winter. He squeezed his eyes shut against it, and stopped her mouth with his before she could say it again.

Much later, he lay curled around her from behind, resting his wounded left arm across her waist whilst she used his right arm as a pillow. He nuzzled into her hair and dozed. The small tent was humid and dark and redolent of their love making. But, unlike the last few days where that combination had gone straight to his head and roused him into motion again, he felt like he was somehow entombed - all around him, the thick moist air like rich loam pressed into his skin, smothering and pushing him into the earth and holding him there. Buried alive. Alone and trapped. In the shadows. Waiting for the long dark nothing to consume him… He tried to kick out, to free himself, but it only held him tighter and tighter. He jerked, eyes flying open in panic.

"Sawyer?" Kate whispered. She had moved, and was now facing him. She touched his face. "Dream?"

"It's nothing." He told her. Nothing new anyway – they always went the same way, just the window dressing updating with the times, as it had been since That Night so long ago. She kissed his right arm that she was still using as a pillow. Her lips touched the knotty edge of Sayid's scar and lingered there.

"I wish you would talk to me about it." He felt her lips move against his arm as she whispered, and he swallowed the reflexive lump in his throat.

"Ain't exactly the kind of thing a gentleman speaks of in the company of a lady." He whispered back, his voice sliding like broken glass from his throat. He tried to make it teasing, but couldn't. Since he had returned from the rafting misadventure and fallen into her arms the dreams had come less often, but they had not stopped.

"Ja-" She started, but he didn't let her finish. Couldn't bear it. Fresh from latest variation of The Dream, with crocodiles snapping at his heels, and the whole world that was about to swing back like a revolving door, he couldn't bear to hear it and the desperation to stop her transformed itself into fresh desperate passion. He kissed her with feverish intensity and after a moment she was responding.

Without another word, still devouring her with open mouthed kisses, he reached up and found Kate's small backpack and rummaged inside for another one of their precious cache. He tore the wrapper and rolled the rubber over his suddenly hard cock. Without hesitation, Kate hooked one leg over his hip and took him inside. He slid in easily and grabbed her raised knee as he started a deep fast thrusting. She matched him thrust for thrust, moaning with abandon into his grasping, gasping mouth as he sucked at her lips, her tongue. Her hands clutched at him. The heel of her raised leg pressed into his ass. Her tight liquid passage clenched him in its velvet grip.

They broke for air. God, she had never looked so incredible to him as she did at this moment: hair wild around her elfin face, flushed pink and stippled with sweat in a fresh crop of freckles over her face, her swollen lips in a silent 'O' and those eyes looking at him with such open, candid emotion…

God…

He pulled out, ignoring her protest. And pulled her upright with him, turned her away onto her hands and knees and shoved himself back inside. She shuddered, paused for a moment as if to protest again, but he began moving and she dropped onto her elbows, head dangling forward, ass in the air, working with him as thrust vigorous and deep and fast.

It couldn't last, not like this. And when he came it was so intense it bordered on painful. He clutched at her hips, groaning and gasping over her arching back, as the spasms wracked him head to toe. He fell forward over her, shaking, mindless. She hadn't climaxed, he could feel it, feel her, still liquid and vibrating around his spent cock, could feel it in the tense strain of her back.

He could fix that. He was fucking good at it. It was his speciality. No woman forgot him after this.

None of them forgot Sawyer…

Sawyer pulled out a second time and turned her back to face him. Without a word he dropped between her thighs and applied himself for the second time that hour. She was so near the edge, so swollen and wet, that he knew he wasn't going to have to do very much to take her over the precipice. He nuzzled in, parting her folds and took her stiff clitoris between his lips. He stroked hard with his tongue, as he suckled; one, two and then three fingers delving deep inside her to feel for the sweet spot. Underneath him Kate arched, her fingers scraping at his scalp as she grabbed at his head. She babbled sweetly. Then her thighs trembled and became rigid as she stiffened and jerked against him. Her inner muscles squeezed his stroking fingers. Her clitoris throbbed under his lips. He rode the strong thrusting of her hips, and concentrated on prolonging her pleasure as much as he could, applying all his best tricks to blend this orgasm with a next and a next, rippling them together like overlapping currents.

He followed her closely as she thrust wantonly against his mouth, followed her into snaking shudders and finally gently settled with her back onto the bed as she tired and her thighs unclenched from squeezing him. They trembled under his hands as he pressed them open to continue his intimate caresses. She was still coming, he could feel it against his mouth and in the squeezing of his fingers, but the strength of the contractions were weakening and he reigned in the intensity of his ministrations to match – suckling delicately at her swollen clitoris, tonguing it softly. His fingers were barely moving inside her now, but it was enough to prolong the slowly ebbing tide of her arousal and turn it into something warm and floating. Her fingers stroked through his hair, slow and gentle, and he lifted his eyes to look at her.

His gaze travelled over the flat tremble of her belly, her hard tipped breasts, and on to her flushed and sweating face. They locked eyes as he suckled and he felt the hard nub twitch against his tongue. He chased and found the small orgasm, drew it from her near spent tissues and watched her eyelids flutter and swollen lips part in a soft sigh as he did so. Her thighs quivered. So beautiful, he though, so fucking beautiful. And God, he loved her so much it hurt like nothing ever had, but he could not let go of this morning and Jack's revelation nor her own confession.

Soon after her eyes slid shut and her features relaxed, but he did not stop until he felt her begin to drift away from him into sleep. Her limbs relaxed, her fingers grew slack in his hair, and he withdrew his fingers and lifted himself away. Within moments, he had gathered her into his arms and was sliding into sleep himself, willing himself not to dream, not to feel anything more until morning.

But when he awoke, in the late evening, it was to screams of "Fire, Fire" broadcast through the camp in a strong Iraqi accent.

LOSTLOSTLOSTLOST

(Kate's POV)

Kate was half asleep with Sawyer spooned in close behind, his wounded arm resting over her waist, and his right arm thrust out conveniently for her to use as a pillow. The tent was warm and dark, a small concealed space on an island with precious few private places and she appreciated each cramped inch of it - especially right now when she wanted nothing more than to be naked and alone with Sawyer. With James. She rolled her head and kissed her pillow.

Her lover was snoring softly in his sleep, but she couldn't join him. Her every cell was ripe with satisfaction, her skin still aglow from his attentions so she should, based on recent history, be fast asleep. But she wasn't. Couldn't. The vision of Sawyer's bloody cheek kept on appearing before her in the shadowy tent. Jack had hit him. Sawyer had not hit him back or first – she had seen his knuckles and they were undamaged. That knowledge swirled around and around in her mind and robbed her of the calm she needed to sleep.

Something was going on, but Sawyer had only hinted at it, dismissing her inquiries and distracting her with loving words and sensitive touches. She frowned in the dark and listened to the ocean hissing and rolling outside the tent. The man curled around her was not incapable of driving people to distraction, of pushing them to the point of explosion, but even the thought that Jack would resort to physical violence over, well, her, was unbelievable. It was galling. It was beyond tolerance. It was damn near unforgivable, and not just for the act itself. She was not a possession, she was not some helpless innocent, she was not a victim and he had to accept that.

If that was really what all this was about…

Sawyer suddenly shifted behind her, nuzzling into her hair and mumbling. He settled in closer and quieted again. And Sawyer. Something was going on with him as well. Perhaps it was his confrontation with Jack, but he had been strangely determined to pull her into his tent just now. 'Marking his territory' perhaps? That would certainly explain his alpha male start, diving between her legs, unbuttoning and unzipping, aiming to gallop her into orgasm as fast as he could as if trying to make a point to himself as much as to her. So she had promptly made one back, turning the tables on him so that she was on top.

She flipped him onto his back, covering his face and throat with urgent nipping kisses, unbuttoning his shirt as she started a determined downward journey - alternating lips with teeth in tiny kittenish bites. Sawyer grasped her shoulders, rising and falling like the ocean underneath her. He gasped and moaned, arching upwards. She nipped and kissed her way along the now familiar muscular curve of his chest and her lips closed around a nipple, teeth nibbling daintily as she applied sucking pressure. His moan became a choking growl.

"Fuck! Freckles-" He pushed upwards suddenly, reaching over her. She felt his hand on her back, then he found a pinch of material and pulled, getting the garment most of the way off before she realised what was happening.

"No." She sat up, stopping him and pushing him back onto the bed. "Stay there, stay still." He rose up against her hands. "Stop or I will! Be still and let me-"

"Let you what?" He demanded.

"If you lie still, you'll see."

"See what? You gonna blow my mind Freckles?" He growled suggestively, a sultry anticipatory smile on his face, and he arched into her hand that was splayed against his naked ribs. She dug her nails into his skin as he moved, warning him to stay still. It didn't work. In fact he seemed to like it and surged upwards like a cresting wave. Time to change tack. She stopped moving herself and looked down at the man sprawled under her, taking in the well developed muscles, the long masculine lines of him, the sprinkling of tawny hair over his chest and further down a thinner darker line of it that disappeared under his belt. "Sonnavabitch." She heard him breathe and looked up to find him hooked like a fish by her unashamedly lustful expression.

"You have filthy mouth Sawyer." She told him, in the most lewd growl she could manage as she moved in closer, her mouth stopping less than an inch from his, humid eyes pinning him down more effectively than her hands ever could. He stopped moving. "But, that's OK: so do I." His answering laugh quickly turned into another groaning growl as she tore open the last few buttons of his shirt and, to make a point returned to the same nipple, closing her lips around it and sucking and nipping the hardened tip with those little kittenish bites.

"Jesus! Stop. Freckles, stop. Stop!" He suddenly gasped and she felt one of his hands touch the back of her head. His fingers slid into her hair, tugging half heartedly away from his chest.

She ignored his plea, but granted his wish all the same and all but devoured his chest and stomach as she returned to her rapid decent. Her teeth nipped along his belt line as she made short rough work of the leather and fastenings there. Her hands were feverish against him.

Then she was setting him free from his denim prison, recapturing him with her hands. She did not give him even a second to recover before she began pumping his erect cock, hard and fast, how he liked it best. He fell back on the bed with a ragged gasp, gaze helplessly locked onto what she was doing to him.

"Christ. Like that yeah." He panted, moving with her in short hard jabbing thrusts. "Harder Sweetness, you ain't gonna hurt me- oh shit, yeah, goodfuckingchristlikethatyea hohyeahgonnacome-" His eyes suddenly slammed shut, head falling back, mouth agape as he pulled in the air in harsh gasps. Sweat had broken out across his chest. His hands clutched at the bedding, twisting it, the knuckles turning white.

God, but she loved this man. The rush of emotion that accompanied that thought seemed to come out of no where, burning like adrenaline as it flushed through her body and out through her hands where she stroked him. Such was the blazing intensity of it though, that as it left her she felt as if a violent blaze had passed by, leaving her with something quieter but no less powerful; something that smouldered and glowed and burned like a beautiful sunset. And her hands slowed from a gallop to a steady walk, stroking root to tip now in long slow flowing motions. The southerner shuddered, his eyelids opened slightly and she saw the glisten of his eyes. That little frown line of curiosity furrowed his brow.

"James." She murmured, loud enough for his ears alone. His eyes opened wider, their gaze's met and she held him there. Then she lowered her head, her long wavy hair fell over her face, blocking his view, and touched her lips to the head of his cock, melting around it, over it, and engulfing him into soft slick heat. She smoothed her tongue along the underside of the firm crown, as her hands continued to move slow and strong along the rest of his length.

"Kate-" The word was part moan, part whisper, reverent but burning with raw emotion, and she realised that this is what he had been wanting all along. It was what he always wanted. He hunted for that single potent word with all the intensity that he went after everything he did and when he found it, it seemed to touch him more deeply than mere physical contact ever could – which was intriguing since he seemed to desire it most when they were already at their most physically intimate, at their most vulnerable and honest. And then he would return the gift… She blinked and almost paused as the new insight sank in. She felt tears prick at her eyes.

Overcome with emotion, she took as much as she could of him into her mouth, sliding the throbbing shaft over her tongue, gripping the last half of it in both hands. Long moments passed where the only sounds in the tent were the ocean and soft wet sucking as Kate worked him with renewed fire. Sawyer moaned, incoherent with pleasure, and his hips began to move restlessly in small tight jerks and tensing shudders. He was close. She felt his fingers in her hair, clutching at her, tense and desperate, trying not to grab her and thrust though shaking with the need to do just that.

Then it was happening. He became rigid under her and with a long low husky cry he came.

Then it was her turn. And she put her hand over his as he took her into ecstasy just like that first time on the bunk bed, swallowing her cries with possessive kisses, whilst all the time watching her with those melting eyes. When at last she settled back onto the bed, lying spent in his arms she met those passion filled eyes and opened her mouth to say that word again, but he stopped her, moulding his lips to hers and pushing his tongue into her mouth. She pushed back and they traded soft slow sucking kisses until fatigue took him under into sleep.

Now, as she lay with her lover at her back, she thought about the incident with Jack again and grew furious with the doctor. Yet something was not right with this picture. There had to be more to this than it appeared, because to start with Jack was not a violent man – not like this. She thought of the vague threat that Jack had made on the beach earlier in the day and realised that the two incidents had to be linked in someway. Something had happened between the two men whilst she had been recuperating in the Hatch; something that was so potent that Jack could now strike out at the other man without the immediate retaliation that could normally be expected. She sighed. Well, she knew one thing without question: Sawyer would not take the submissive role for long. And she wasn't naïve enough to believe that she could do anything about it from this end. They key was Jack. She was going to have to confront Jack, again.

Behind her Sawyer murmured in his sleep, shivered once and was still again. But not for long. She recognised the signs and rolled over just in time to feel him jerk awake, eyes flying open in panic: that same alarm that she had seen when they had spent the night in the jungle hunting for the boar.

"Sawyer?" Kate whispered. She touched his face. "Dream?"

"It's nothing." He told her, his voice rough and thin and far distant. He was still caught up in his own mind, still trapped in that damned house of death and misery, and he would be for a few moments more. That was how this went. Helpless and saddened, she pressed a kiss to his arm and waited. Sayid's scar was a rough thin line against her lips.

"I wish you would talk to me about it." She sighed, knowing that he wouldn't. Desperately wanting him to.

"Ain't exactly the kind of thing a gentleman speaks of in the company of a lady." He whispered back.

"Ja-" She started, but he was suddenly kissing her with that strange desperate need that also often went with this aftermath of horror. It was intense and wild and she went with it as his lips started a chain reaction inside her that she could not ignore nor deny. And when he slicked on a condom, she went with that too, hooking her thigh over his hip and taking him inside in one smooth easy thrust. He immediately withdrew and pushed in again, starting a fast, deeply penetrating rhythm. She gasped against his mouth and thrust with him. Oh god. He was so big inside her, and this angle was making her lose her mind, making her so liquid and swollen around the heavy thrust of his cock, that she could think of nothing else.

But then, suddenly, without warning he was pulling out of her and before she could fully register what he was doing she found herself on her hands and knees being taken from behind with the same fast deep rhythm. He was racing. Racing behind her, fleeing from the nightmare, trying desperately to obliterate it from his mind. Everything about this was desperate. He was running and she ran with him, helping him, matching her movements to his as he raced towards the inevitable. She could feel her own orgasm building, though she knew that it would take more time than he had left for her to climax again. He suddenly curled over her back, his breath hot and moist against her skin, and shook and groaned. She groaned with him as that pistoning shaft stilled inside her and the momentum of her building orgasm stalled with it.

What happened next was not unexpected, but the intensity of it was. With mind-boggling skill and patience he restarted her spiralling pleasure and took her over the precipice again and again and again, until she was utterly spent. Utterly depleted. She writhed and bucked and shook and finally lay quiescent and still as he drew every ounce of pleasure from her, and then more. When she coasted into sleep he was still there, attentive and tireless: her guardian, her lover, her love. Why couldn't it just stay as simple and as good as this?

When she finally awoke, in the late evening, it was to screams of "Fire, Fire" broadcast through the camp in a strong Iraqi accent.

End chapter 2


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The reedy things, the long grass and bits of dead foliage on the green flat fuelled the wild fire like kerosene. Crimson and orange flames shot high in the clear black sky and lit up the whole area, camp to seashore to jungle, like electric lighting. And it was damned hot! Hot enough to burn the grin off the devil himself.

Sawyer swatted one handed at the blaze with the blanket he had torn from his bed, and shielded his face from the scorching heat with his bad hand. The fire roared and snapped, flicking orange and red sparks and burning shreds of grass over the attacking army of castaways. Black choking smoke rolled and belched, stinging eyes and burning lungs. All around him, people were coughing and hollering: shouting orders, giving the alarm (though anyone would have to be dead not to know by now) and shrieking in fright as the flames swatted at them and threatened to do just what Sayid had warned only minutes ago: to burn right through the camp.

It was funny. If Mohammad had told him on their first morning on MysteryIsland that the camp was going to be wiped out in the evening, he wouldn't have given much of a shit. Hell, the place had been nothing more than a worthless collection of ramshackle tents that could easily be rebuilt in a day. But now things had changed to a degree that Sawyer had not realised as he found himself fighting back with everything he had. In this moment, nothing seemed more important to him than saving that tumbledown shanty town and their piles of precious mangoes. He would have laughed, would have sworn at himself, if he had the breath to spare.

"Here!" Sayid was suddenly bawling in his ear and shoving an empty tin into his hands. "Water! We need more water. Go! Go!"

He took the container and nodded like a good little soldier. Sayid's hand slapped his undamaged shoulder:

"Good man." The Iraqi shouted and Sawyer stared at him, suddenly rattled.

That was what they thought of him now. Kate had told him so as she trimmed his hair on the beach. Charlie had all but said it when he had greeted him in the Hatch. Sayid had not said it, until now, but he had presented him with new glasses and asked nothing in return. Michael, Jin with his gifts of fish, and even Hurley… And Kate: god, Kate. She told him without words and with them. She told him with her eyes, with her hands, her lips. She told him when she said That Word. And most of the rest of the castaways broadcast it in their smiling faces, in their morning greetings and their evening farewells. They had told him and told him and told him and he had let them do it and deep down inside, suffused to the core with Kate's warmth, he had let them all go one telling him – and worse, he had begun to let the concept sink in for consideration. He had let them tell him because he had suddenly wanted it to be true and had thought he had seen the possibility reflected at him in Kate's eyes. And he had just let Sayid say it without making him pay for it, because he still wanted it to be true despite the fact that the man had conned him and robbed him along with everyone else, and despite the fact that he was so fucking angry at them all, at himself.

A good man.

Sawyer: a good man.

No. Fuck. No. Not now. Not ever.

Maybe James was a good man. Maybe. The world would never know, though, because James had not made it from boy to man. And now James was Pinocchio. He was a little wooden puppet that had lived under the bed for the last 28 years, hands over his eyes, straining and hoping for a miracle that he might one day find his way out, to be reborn in flesh and blood. But deep in his empty wooden heart he knew it was a fool's dream, 'cause ain't no one ever raised the dead, it was impossible, and no amount of wishing could change that. If it could, all these years spent desperately wishing he'd had the spine to run into that fucking kitchen and save his mother and have her still alive would have made it so by now.

And Sawyer? Well Sawyer wasn't a real boy either. He had been born fully formed, a grown man of 19 shaped and moulded from a decade of loathing and hatred and terror like sculpture got born from clay. He was all those years of hate turned inward. He was a monstrosity, a scheming leering predator. And they never saw him coming until it was too late. There was nothing good in that. There could never been anything good born from that.

Sawyer froze, bucket in hand, as those words: 'good man' suddenly tore into the already damaged bubble that he had been living in these last few days and ripped it asunder. What the hell had he been thinking? What the hell had he been doing? 'Good man'? Fuck! He had been deliberately avoiding acknowledging it all he suddenly realised. Since that first time in his tent, since that total joy of finally being with her, inside her, since he'd told her his name… Christ, he had not realised what he had been doing. All those years, as time wore and wore at the memory of That Night, not diminishing it but relentlessly putting more and more distance between him and what had happened, he hadn't realised just how intensely, how subversively, ol' Pinocchio's desire for real flesh and blood had been growing and taking him over. He felt guilty. Ashamed. His Momma, lying all strange and crumpled on the old cracked linoleum floor staring at him with frozen eyes, came back to him now with a slap.

He had promised to be the son to her in death that he should have been in life, and give her the only thing he could now to make up for his total failure to protect her: vengeance. But instead, stuck on this sand box and cut adrift from his mission and losing direction and focus, that fucking pathetic whining wooden boy under the bed had begun to uncover his eyes. And then Kate told him she loved him and he had instantly lost his mind, desperate suddenly to come alive again and be for her the type of man she should have: a real one. So he told her his secret and gave her the magic bean that might begin to make the impossible possible. And she had gone and done just that, damn her! Damn her!

That place deep inside, that one that he hadn't been able to name, that one that he let Kate stroke and tend when they were alone together – that he lured and entreated her to touch – had suddenly revealed itself.

He felt abruptly violently ill. And desperate, and guilty beyond endurance. And angry, so fucking angry. What the hell had she done? What the hell had he let her do? It had to stop. He was going to stop it, squash it, smash it to pieces. He was going to stuff that fucking puppet back in its box and nail the fucking thing shut. He had a promise to fulfil: Sawyer had a promise to fulfil. He might be a monster, but even monsters could do right and he'd be damned if he was going to fail again.

"Hurry!" Sayid suddenly called again, snapping him out of his reverie. He nodded, dazed.

Down to the shore he sprinted, stumbling in thick drifts of loose beach sand threaded through with a treacherous hidden webbing of dead and dried grass, and running straight into Charlie, Clare and Locke on the water line. The Englishman, like some moon-crazed loon, was standing knee deep in the night blackened foamy sea, screaming his insanity at Locke. And holding Aaron to his chest like a hostage. The baby's wails come through the windy roar of ocean and fire in sharp piercing shrieks. The sort of desperately unhappy cries that Charlie had been frantic to sooth only weeks ago sitting in his tent listening to him read auto magazines.

What the fuck was this?

People poured onto the beach behind him: some with containers and those attracted by the new spectacle. He saw Kate amongst them, dishevelled and sooty, like the rest. But safe. She looked up, and caught his eye. He caught the look of instant relief and intense tenderness on her face as her eyes dipped to scan him feet to head and he had to look away. She was his Siren. If he let her draw him in again he would drown.

Charlie suddenly called out an appeal Mr Eko: something about baptism, but most of it was lost under the ocean roar and the sound of Aaron crying. And there was Clare, a ghost with her Munch's 'Scream' face, looking like she might fly apart screaming at any second. And Locke, his voice that deceptive still-water calm, telling, ordering Charlie to hand over the baby, but the Limey shrimp had gone dark side and stood his ground, baby still in his arms. Aaron went on screaming his little head off.

Briefly, Sawyer considered the distance between him and the smaller man, the time he would need to close that gap and grab him, but dismissed it. Likely any tackle he tried would end up with the baby in the drink. He was no hero anyway. So he pursed his lips in a grimace, resigned himself to the bleachers to watch Locke bring it home with three of the hardest punches Sawyer had seen in a long, long time. The blows put the younger man down into the water and there he stayed, strings of blood drooling from his split lips, alerting all the sharks within 10 miles, whilst the rest of the castaways turned their backs and walk away – leaving him to drown or not.

All except Sawyer.

The southerner waded into the chill water to fill his bucket like Mr Islam had told him too and watched Locke go after Claire. Watched Charlie watching Locke go after Claire. Even stunned and half drowned there was hatred in the Englishman's face: the sort of unthinking loathing that could drive a man to all sorts of interesting lows… Bucket filled Sawyer turned back towards the diminishing fire. Sayid was still bellowing orders and the silhouettes of his willing soldiers danced in front of the flames as they scurried to obey. He frowned suddenly. The Englishman had never looked at the fire, not once; and it had been one hell of a blaze. There could only be one reason for that. Sawyer looked back at Charlie and smiled.

LOSTLOSTLOSTLOST

"Well, well, now look who had to relocate to the suburbs." Sawyer smirked, eyeing what was left of Mr Eurovision as he strode out of the sea and paused to haul his jeans up wet legs.

The ocean dip had been just what the doctor ordered, even though Dr Halo had expressly ordered him not to do it this morning as he made his rounds and found his patient eyeing the water with intent. He banned it again as Sawyer shrugged out of his shirt and told him to go fuck himself. Sawyer tore the bandage from his shoulder and tossed it into the nearest fire. Jack let him go.

He had needed time to think; time to run everything through his head one last time before opening night, and riding out into the ocean swell was the only place to do it. He couldn't do it in his tent: Kate was sleeping in there. All though the remains of the night, both of them still stinking of smoke and salty sea, he had lain awake in his tent with her curled up by his side, also awake. Charlie had rattled her. Charlie had rattled everyone. The Others were supposed to be the enemy, not one of their own. The illusion of safety here on this travel brochure beach had been kicked in the balls and everyone was reeling from the blow. Who knew now where the danger would come from next: from outside or from within? What were they going to do to make themselves safe now that their closest neighbour might be the next one to go postal? Should they go down the paranoid route and arm themselves? Should they build themselves a militia? An army?

Sawyer had heard rumours about Jack's army. Ana-Lucia had been on a recruiting drive and his new found 'goodness' had loosened tongues around the camp – had she asked him yet? Did he know the details of just what Jack was planning? What the fuck was the matter with her that she wanted to start a fucking war? Sawyer had not been asked. Kate had not been asked. So Jack was still sore at them both and keen they be shut out. And Robo-cop had evidently agreed with him.

So the key to heaven now, was the guns in the Hatch. Charlie's antics had started everyone thinking, but it was still a long leap to make from suburban housewife to GI Jane. Something else had to happen before Mr and Mrs John Q Citizen could make that jump. Something else had to happen before the market shifted and an AK47 became the must-have accessory this season…

Kate had finally succumbed to sleep by the time Sawyer had stepped out of the tent this morning needing some space to think. His gaze had been drawn to the quiet, empty ocean… No one else ever went swimming in the sea, not since what's-her-name drowned, so it had become his and his alone. 'His.' He had floated on his back beyond the breakers, ignoring the throb and ache of his shoulder, and thought about that word; remembered back before the raft when it had meant everything to him. A week ago 'his' and 'not his' had defined everything, for him and for everyone else on the island in terms that had not been so simple since the Homes he had spent his childhood in. 'His' was power. 'His' was safety and surety. He had learned that long, long ago and learned the hard way how fucking bad it could get when he let the world define 'his'. That lesson had gone in good and deep and stuck fast. Like riding a bike: learning just how much it fucking hurt to fall off made sure the learning how to ride got buried in the brain as deep as breathing. Well, he had gone and fallen off his bike like a fool and had been reminded of that lesson of old. He would never forget it again.

Charlie watched him with dark eyes as he struggled to string up a new tent. His face was coloured with Locke shaped bruises and a night spent without sleep or shelter.

"Ain't that just like a woman?" Sawyer prodded. "She keeps the house and you get the cheap-ass apartment. Man, I thought these people hated me, but I've got to hand it to you - stealing a baby, trying to drown it - that's a new low.

"You even made Locke take a swing at you. Hell, that's like getting Gandhi to beat his kids."

Charlie looked away in anger and guilt, stared down the beach for a minute then back, and there was a smile in his voice when he said:

"Shouldn't you be more worried about Jack chatting Kate up in your tent just now?"

Sawyer jerked. "What?"

END CHAPTER


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Kate woke to an empty bed and frowned, reaching out to touch the cool bedding. The former occupant was long gone. She glanced upwards and saw bright morning sun coming through the tiny frayed patches of canvas in hazy fingers of light. She continued frowning, feeling strangely perturbed. It was amazing how quickly she had become reaccustomed to waking in company. She and Sawyer had been sleeping in the same bed for less than a week, but waking now and finding him absent felt as wrong, as uncomfortable, as if they had been together for 50 years and had been suddenly parted. And this morning she did not want to be parted from him.

What Charlie had done last night beggared belief. He loved Aaron. He was besotted with Claire. And yet he had hurt them, threatened them and betrayed them, betrayed everybody, completely and shamelessly. How could anyone hurt baby? How could anyone even consider it? Stupid questions. She knew people were capable of it, she just didn't want it to be true: not here, not now. It was going to change everything…

She disentangled herself from the twisted blankets feeling somewhat bereft. Sawyer should be snoring softly beside her, she should be able to lean over him and wake him with kisses; see those blue green eyes open blearily and hear him play at belligerence over the early morning wake up call. He should be there to wrap his arms around her and make last night seem like a passing nightmare. But things were changing here too. She didn't know why, but she felt this morning's absence was significant. And she remembered her resolve from yesterday: to talk to Jack. She may not have any control over anything else, but she would be damned if she would watch these two men take their already rocky relationship to new lows and do nothing. Particularly if they were thinking with their gonads…

"Kate?" Jack suddenly said from outside the tent. His voice was clipped, as was becoming usual, and uncomfortable. Good. She opened tent flap and found her visitor standing tensely right in front of the opening; his face was sere in the early morning sun.

"Morning Jack." She greeted him and watched him pause. "What's going on?"

"Here." He held out a pill bottle. She took it and looked at the label.

"What's this? Afloxicin. These are Sawyer's antibiotics. What's going on?"

"I'm not treating him anymore." He motioned to the pills. "Give those to him when you see him next. Tell him to keep on taking them like he has been until the bottle is empty. And give him this as well." Kate suddenly found herself with a box to go with the bottle. It looked like a homemade first aid kit. "He'll find everything he needs there to change his own bandages."

"Jack-"

"No, Kate. Don't start with me." He motioned to the supplies and backed up a step, clearly making to depart. He tightened his shoulder strap. "Just don't."

"Jack! What the hell is going on between you two?" She demanded, suddenly furious with them both. She watched Jack's face briefly crease into a humourless, disgusted smile. He shook his head and turned away. "Jack!" Kate turned, dumping the supplies into the open tent and lunged after the doctor. She grabbed his arm. He let her stop him. "I have a right to know. What is going on? Is this about what's happened, between Sawyer and me?"

"Is that what he told you?"

"No. He told me nothing."

"Well then: its nothing." Jack replied with a purse of his lips. He went to turn away again.

"You don't hit people over 'nothing' Jack." Kate retorted to his stiff back. Real anger had leaked into her voice. "What happened?"

"Just leave it Kate."

"No! For god's sake, you're acting like-"

"Like what?" Jack suddenly turned back to her; he took a step forward. "Like him? I didn't think you would have a problem with that." He prodded her. She gritted her teeth.

"What is going on?" She asked again, refusing to be drawn into yet another pointless argument on an island already filled with them. "Is it something to do with you threatening Sawyer yesterday?"

"What? I didn't threaten him."

"Right, you just 'promised' him you'd get him. I've seen the same lame gangster movies you have Jack."

"Sawyer can take care of himself."

"It's not him I'm worried about?"

"What? You're worried about me now?" Jack asked. There was something close to contempt in his voice. "I can take-"

"I'm worried about all of us." She interrupted him, equally disgusted. "After Charlie last night. And what happened in the jungle, with the Others. We can't afford to have you two at each other's throats as well.

"What is going on?" She demanded again. He didn't answer. "Fine, don't tell me then, but you're both grown men: work it out. Before this island works it out for you." They almost-glared at each other.

"Mornin' again Doc." Sawyer's voice suddenly called out from across the sand. She looked up to see her missing bed mate, wet through and wearing nothing but jeans and beach sand striding a little too fast, a little too forcefully, towards them from the direction of Charlie's new tent. The Englishman was watching him go with a slight smile on his battered face. It wasn't a friendly expression. "Well now, ain't this just a regular social hub? Have to rename the place: the Water Cooler. What do you think Freckles?" He swooped in behind her with a grin and a heavy, proprietal, and extremely unsubtle arm across her shoulders. There was a glint of steel in his smile. "What can I do you for then Doc? Oh, that's right: not a lot now that you stole yourself your own stash.

"Where's Locke? You leave him behind to polish them purty guns of yours? Must be kinda hard, him all busted up from brawling with Milli Vanilli back there. Still, I guess you trust him; must do to leave him alone with that combination lock-"

"Sawyer-" Kate warned, still fresh from her argument with Jack.

"Oh that's ok darlin'. He know's I'm joshin', don't ya Doc. Hey, where y'all goin'?" He called out to Jack's back as the doctor simply walked off in complete disgust and anger. "We're about to set down for breakfast-

"And where are you going Freckles?" He suddenly stopped calling after Jack when he felt her shrug off his arm and disappear into the tent. She emerged with the pills and first aid box.

"Here." She said. "Jack left these." She watched him squint at the bottle and then hold it at arm's length. "Your antibiotics." She helped him out. "And your bandages."

"Doc ain't makin' house calls no more?" He said, sounding anything but surprised.

"Sawyer, I don't know what's going on with you and Jack, but you have to work it out. After Charlie-"

"What: after Charlie?" Sawyer interrupted. "He say something to you? Did he come down here? I'll kick his lily ass-"

"No! Sawyer, everyone's scared. Its bad enough having those 'Others' out there, without having Charlie doing what he did, and now you two butting heads as well.

"Neither of you want to let me in on your argument: fine. But do something about it, before it gets out of hand!" She demanded. "I'm not going to be stuck in the middle."

"Where you going now?"

"My tent."

"What? Oh, come on!"

"I need fresh clothes, these stink of smoke. What are you doing? Sawyer, let go of me!"

"Don't walk away angry Freckles. Fine, I'll go talk to Jackass. Politely. I'll even call him Doctor Jackass: how's that?"

"Now."

"OK, OK. Now. Christ woman you sure are pushy this morning." He considered her for a moment, and his gaze turned steamy. "You don't need to go back to your tent just yet do you?"

"Don't look at me like that: I'm still mad at you."

"Yeah?" He asked, dropping a kiss on the wrist he had captured as she tried to leave.

"Yes."

"Really?" He kissed her hand. His lips were curiously cool from his swim and the breeze along the beach. She shivered, responding to his touch despite herself.

"You're incorrigible."

"Yeah." He grinned cheekily at her and kissed her hand again, drawing her back towards him. "I guess that's why old Jacko and Ana-Lulu didn't ask me to join their revolution.

"What, you didn't hear about their little army? I guess I'm not the only one needs to make amends with the Doc then."

END CHAPTER


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

By the time the con moved into its final phase, its grand denouement, it was pretty much running itself leaving Sawyer to sit back and watch it all unroll before him like a red fucking carpet. Oh, he hadn't lost his touch. Despite everything, he was still a damn good conman. One of the best perhaps. Gordy had been right: the part of conman wasn't just what he did, it was what he was. He was Sawyer, the confidence man. Never could be anything else.

Charlie had been easy to entrap. The little bastard was so filled up with self-loathing, with hatred for Locke and his self righteous Zen shit that Sawyer had pulled him in easily. He had been dead right: there was no low to which the Englishman would not sink now. So he told him what to do and the Englishman did it – with a touch too much enthusiasm – but it did the trick.

And he had set things up so well that, after that, very little needed to be done to make sure that the simmering tensions that had been building since the baby-napping erupted into paranoia and open conflict between the Brothers Grimm.

By the end of the day the guns were his.

Simple.

Easy.

And they never even saw him coming.

"John, where are they?" Jack had demanded as he marched onto the beach from the direction of the camp, fury in every line of his face. John continued to sit like Buddha, staring out to sea. Sawyer watched carefully from the tree line, waiting for his moment. "You moved the guns. Where are they? We had an agreement."

"An agreement that you were about to violate Jack." Locke had responded as the peanut gallery finally began to realise that something was up and heads started to turn towards the two men. The tracker rose to his feet: the old battle hardened dog squaring up to his fiery younger rival. "Yes, I moved the guns."

"Where? Where? Where, John?" Jack barked.

"Are you going to start handing them out?" Locke retorted. "How many? Who gets them? How much time before there's an accident? Another accident. I made a mistake teaching Michael how to shoot and now he's - he could be dead for all I know - and that, that was my fault. I take responsibility for that and so, yes, I'm taking responsibility for the guns, too.

That was about the time the real arguing started up and Sawyer realised that his moment had arrived.

"I want two guns, John!"

"I'm sorry, Jack. That's the way it's going to be."

"Two guns. Now tell me where they are. Right now!"

Showtime.

Sawyer pulled the trigger, sending several rounds in quick bursts into the treetops. Splintered leaves and bark rained down on his head. He stepped out onto the beach to total silence.

"You gave him the guns?" Jack asked the older man, bewildered and on the back foot, as Sawyer emerged from the jungle with his gun.

"No. I hid them."

Goddamn fools. Contempt boiled his blood as he watched Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dummer gape at him. Fucking idiots. Couldn't see the wood for the trees and now they were screwed. Served them both right.

"That's right, Jack!" He called across the stretch of sand between them. "He's as stupid as you are. You were so busy worrying about each other you never even saw me coming, did you?"

Let's see you have me off of this beach now, 'Jack'.

"How about you listen up," he called out to his entire audience, "because I'm only going to say this once: you took my stuff. While I was off trying to get us help - get us rescued - you found my stash and you took it, divvied it up - my shaving cream, my batteries, even my beer." He could feel the confusion, the shock and fear, in the group beginning to turn to anger. But, it was too late for that now. They were completely fucked and they were only just beginning to realise how bad. Only now were they beginning to realise how bad ol' Sawyer really was. Irredeemable. The bad man. Betrayer and manipulator. Their renewed hatred burned him hotter than the bonfire that separated them. He welcomed the heat like a long lost lover.

"And then something else happened," he continued, "you decided these two boys here were going to tell you what to do and when to do it. Well, I'm done taking orders. And I don't want my stuff back. Shaving cream don't matter; batteries don't matter. The only thing that matters now are guns. And if you want one you're going to have to come to me to get it." Movement to his left, from the direction of the water. Sayid. The blood red desire in the Iraqi's dark eyes was visible over 10 feet away.

"Oh, you want to torture me, don't you?" Come on Mohammad, come on I dare you. Come dance with me with no ropes to hold me down you torturing sonnavabitch… Sayid did not move. "Come on then Mr Bamboo, how about you show everybody how civilized you are right here in the open this time. No? Not interested? Maybe later then, but a heads-up for you boy, I'll die before I give them guns back. And then you'll really be screwed, woncha?

"New sheriff in town, boys!" Sawyer called out across the beach. "You'all best get used to it."

He hadn't seen Kate on the beach, hadn't looked for her, but she turned up at his tent before the hour was out. He watched her come as he polished his gun.

"How'd you do it?" She asked in a pain filled voice. Oh she was hurtin'. Big ol' hurt that oozed out of her pores like sweat. Its sour tang flavoured the air and he had to bite down on his instinct to reach out for her. Didn't like to see her in pain, but if you play with fire you're liable to get yourself burnt and there could be no sympathy for pyromaniacs. She should have seen him for what he was: she had been close enough to see the devil his eyes and yet she had not. Maybe she hadn't wanted to? Well, he would fix that.

There could be no going back now.

"How'd I do what?" He asked.

"John said that he left you in the hatch when he went to hide the guns, and we both know you can't track worth a damn. So, how'd you get them?"

"A magician never tells his secrets."

"You played us. You played 'me'." He heard the crackle of emotion in her voice in that last word, and he took the pain like alcohol poured into a wound. "All that stuff you said about Ana-Lucia – you knew I'd go to Jack; and you knew I'd ask you to go to John."

"Now, how in the world would I know all that?"

"Did you have anything to do with Sun?"

"What kind of person do you think I am?"

"What kind of a person do I think you are?" She repeated, anger adding a new crackle to her voice. "I don't think this has anything to do with guns, or with getting your stash back. I think you want people to hate you.

"God, Sawyer. I thought that you and I… Do you really want everyone to hate you so much that you'd do this to us, to me?" The pain and anger in her voice; that damned uncanny ability she had to reach inside his head and slap him right where it hurt almost broke his control. But there could be no going back now. He was a monster that had made a promise to his Mamma. An oath that could suffer no deviation, no turning away from the path he had set out from himself. And it was better she learned that now. Better that she remembered why he should be hated.

"Good thing you don't hate me, Freckles." He finally managed, hiding himself behind his familiar sardonic half-grin.

"Why do you have to do this?" The hopeless pain in her voice was an agony. And God, he still wanted to hold her! Sawyer clamped his hands around the gun before he betrayed himself and reached across the short distance between them. No! Fuck. He snarled down at the weapon, eyes glaring at it, struggling for control. He was almost there - this was almost done.

"You run. I con." He told her, knowing as he said it that only the latter part seemed to be true anymore. Anger and despair burned through him and he glared. "Tigers don't change their stripes."

She walked away.

LOSTLOSTLOSTLOST

Dreams.

Goddamn fucking dreams.

Sawyer came awake in a rush of panic, lurching up and away from the bed muscles firing with cold adrenaline and fear. He sat panting, quivering. The twin gunshots were still ringing in his ears. There was blood and gunpowder in the air, and they stung his nostrils and burned his lungs like acid.

"Fuck!" He rasped and thumped the bed. He hadn't had The Dream this bad, this real and unambiguous, since the fever dreams back in the Hatch and it had doubled him over in a pain and horror that he could never fight against. He shut his eyes, squeezed them tight. And waited.

Waiting for a small warm hand against his back he suddenly realised. Waiting for soft lips against his skin. Waiting for strong slender arms to curl around him, pull him back into the warm bed, and force this cold terror into retreat.

But no one was there.

"Shit." He snarled at himself. Pull yourself together you sack of shit! She's gone and she ain't never coming back. She's seen the real you and she's gone, just like it needs to be. You got what you wanted: you got the goddamn guns and you got yourself back on track. Grow a fucking spine.

Sawyer reached for his gun, stuffed under the bedding, and hurled himself from the bed and out into the morning light. He felt antsy, charged. He wondered if Sayid would get over his newfound squeemishness and pay him a visit. He was in the fucking mood for conflict.

The southerner glared up and down the beach, knowing exactly the sort of half mad Dirty Harry picture he was paining and not giving a fuck. The camp was in its usual state of lethargic, mostly aimless, industry. Jin was on the edge of the water tossing fish food into the sea, a thick wrapping of net over one shoulder, Charlie's feet were sticking out of his tent, Rose and hubbie were doing something with laundry, and a bunch of others were wandering around keeping clear of his tent. He spotted and traded glares with Mexican Trinity as she walked across the camp. But there was no Sayid. No Jack. No Locke.

And no Kate. Shit. His eyes had drifted involuntarily over her tent, and the open flap revealed an empty space. She was gone. No doubt spilling all sorts of hurt shit to Jacko and Grizzly Adams, he thought with some false anger. He knew that she wouldn't, but he wanted her to. Make shit a whole lot easier if she gave him something to rail against, but this time he knew she wouldn't. He pulled his eyes away from the tent, shouldered his rifle and headed inland for a piss.

LOSTLOSTLOSTLOST

The stalker moved through the jungle towards his target. He was tired, exhausted, harried and near the end of this tether and had been desperate for a break like this.

"Go get us one of them," the boss had said. "It doesn't matter which one, just get us one and bring them back alive."

He hadn't dared ask why, he had just been so incredibly grateful that he was being given this one last chance to redeem himself. So he nodded, took the proffered gun, rope and hood and ran into the jungle – heading to the other side of the island.

He'd had no idea just how he was going to complete his mission. He was no professional soldier, hell he wasn't even a boy scout, but somehow he had to make this work or the boss would use him in place of one of them. But when he arrived at the camp, the place had been in an uproar. Some sort of coup was going on, complete with guns and shooting. The boss had never said that they were armed for fuck's sake! So the stalker had retreated in fear, running back into the jungle and hiding, cowering and despairing.

Then, unbelievably, one of them came to him. Alone, carrying something that he couldn't quite make out from behind all the leafy foliage, they came trudging noisily through the underbrush. He frowned as they passed him by. Didn't they know any better than to go out into this hellish jungle alone? Didn't they care that such indiscretion could get them killed? Or worse… Well, he had no time to ponder their failings: he had a job to do and he had to do it just like the boss said or it would be his sorry ass in the chair. The stalker licked his lips nervously and checked his gun. He pulled the hood out from his belt and held it ready. Then when he was sure they were alone, he followed.

END CHAPTER


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"Jack! Jack! Where's Jack? Help, help!"

"I'm over here. Hurley, Hurley stop! Calm down. What's going on?"

"Help!"

"Hurley! Enough! What's this- Is that blood? Who's…? This is Kate's bag! Where did you find it?"

"By the stream. Back there. I don't- I ran- I'm sorry."

"No, its ok Hurley. It's ok. You did the right thing. Now you have to show me. John! Ana! Go Hurley, go!"

Sawyer heard the voices outside his tent and shook his head in disgust. Did they think he was that stupid? Fucking amateurs. Bait like that would be insulting if it wasn't so childish. He shook his head again and returned to his handyman project. It was almost done.

After everyone was asleep last night, he had crept out the back of his own tent, slipped into the jungle and gathered up every gun, every bullet, every little thing Charlie had swiped for him and brought it all back here. Then he worked until the early hours digging and bracing a little island-safe right under the boxes that served as his closet. Now, as he listened to Sheriff Jack noisily riding off to Ruse-city with his posse, he made some last adjustments, took a long second to admire his new arsenal, and slowly lowered the piece of metal aircraft skin 'lid'. He pressed the metal down firmly and slid his boxes back on top.

No one would ever suspect something this brazen. Especially not those amateurs outside. Goddamn it, did they really think he was that stupid? Did they think that he would come arunnin' like a fool into their jungle ambush just because they mentioned Kate's name? Despite the open invitation he had given Sayid last night, he was not so keen to get himself tortured that he would allow himself to be played so obviously.

Still, it showed him that the Brothers Grimm had kissed and made up and had decided to come back at him in a united front. If he didn't fall for this ploy perhaps they would try a more head on approach? He straightened up from his kneeling crouch, sat back on his heels and rubbed absently at his aching shoulder. He frowned. Something did not feel right. Perhaps this amateur theatre hour was not for him at all? Perhaps it was for everyone else. A nice little distraction for the masses while Hannibal and his army came back around.

It'll come back around…

Shit!

Sawyer swept away the boxes and tore open his safe.

*They usually don't leave any trail.*

*It's worth a look. Let me ask you something - this whole scenario make sense to you?*

*What do you mean?*

*Think about it. First off, how'd she get away? The woman doesn't weigh 100 pounds soaking wet.*

*She was fighting for her life. People are capable of almost anything...*

*You couldn't get away. You versus Sun, hot oil death match, my money's on you, Sheena.*

*Thanks for your vote of confidence.*

She fought for her life, but he was right: she couldn't get away.

Sawyer figured his chances would be better if he took up position in the Hatch. Get himself nice and cosy in that chair next to the button and not one of them would try anything out of fear for the safety of that damned computer. Could get himself room and maid service. Could hold court and …

But that would mean taking up permanent residence in that suffocating hole in the ground. He hadn't been lying when he told Kate that he didn't like being under there. Too confining. Felt like he was being smothered, caged, and it stirred too many memories that he did not want to go near even in daylight. He bet it would be fucking dark with all the lights out too… Shit.

He'd have to take his chances on the beach. But he would be ready for them all the same and make them come at him out in the open where he could pick them off like flies if need be. Sawyer flipped open the tent flap and peered outside. As predicted, hardly anyone was left – the place looked like a damned ghost town. He breathed out through his nose and hefted his rifle. The nine millimetre in the back of his pants dug into his ass. He stepped outside and sat down on his airplane seat, rifle propped out of sight behind his chair with a convenient ammunition bag, another nine millimetre in his lap, and a brand new novel in hand. Charlie stared mournfully at him from his spot on Outcast Ridge. Sawyer ignored him. He slipped on his glasses, opened the first page and began to read.

Kate stumbled. She tried to reach out to cushion the fall but bound hands were no substitute for unbound and the hood blinded her. Helpless to prevent it, she smacked her face into something woody, tree root?, on the narrow trail and lay there stunned.

"Up!" Her kidnapper hissed. He pulled on her upper arm, managing to get her most of the way up, but her senses were reeling and she couldn't co-ordinate herself to do more than hang there – painfully. God, it had been such a stupid thing to do to go mango picking so soon after Sun had been attacked, but she had needed some space and god help her she just could not stay on the beach. Couldn't bear to be anywhere near… it was too painful even to finish the thought. So she had gone for a long walk to the last of the fruiting trees, telling herself with every step that she wasn't running, that she wasn't fleeing the scene of the crime - that she wasn't falling back into old habits. Telling herself all manner of lies. "Stand up! Up, or so help me I'll shoot you right here!"

Kate didn't doubt it. Her attacker was as scared as he was intent on kidnapping her and she had no trouble believing that he would shoot her if he felt he had to. She scrabbled her boots at the muddy ground, her heart thumping. She had to play for time. It was her only chance.

"Up!"

"I can't. Hit my head. Think I'm going to be sick."

"Then be sick, but get up!"

She scrabbled some more and then hung there, trying not to cry out at the pain of dangling by her upper arm. She had to slow him down and give them time to find her. She paused. Give who time to find her? Sawyer? Jack? John? Who? Who was left that did not think her either a sap or a liability? Who would even notice that she was gone?

It was unbelievable, what Sawyer had done. Since his return, since he had found himself on the receiving end of everyone's growing affections, she had seen and felt his unease. She had glimpsed flashes of fear and defensive ferocity in his face on numerous occasions, even after they had emerged from his tent that first morning when she had felt there had been some sort of breakthrough. But she had thought, as time wore on and those flashes of feeling never lead to anything more, that what she was seeing was as a result of some sort of wary re-emergence of the man that had been hiding under so many years of hurt and anger. She had decided, foolishly it now seemed, that he had to do this on his own for it to have any meaning, any backbone to it. So she had been content to watch and be ready should the advance suddenly become a rapid retreat. And it had appeared to be working.

She had been so confident of her convictions, that even after Jack had revealed the fate of Sawyer's precious stash, even after he and Sawyer had begun to butt heads once again, she had never expected the feared retreat to actually happen. She had certainly never expected it to happen like it did – so completely and so violently. She hadn't expected to be one of those on the receiving end of his lashing out, as if she was no one, as if she meant nothing to him. And she hadn't even seen it coming.

Maybe she hadn't wanted it see it coming.

And the other castaways? She must look like such a fool or worse. No one had spoken to her this morning, though the beach had been filled with unnerved people just looking for reassuring banal conversation. Even those people she counted as friends, who had been the most accepting of her and Sawyer's new relationship, did not speak to her. Times were uncertain. People were afraid. They were afraid of Sawyer, and by connection they now seemed to be afraid of her.

Or angry at her: like Jack and John.

She had no idea if anyone had even noticed that she was gone. Certainly they had no idea what had happened to her.

"Up! Fuck!" Her captor was growing exasperated and he yanked at her arm. She didn't have to fake the cry of pain. "All right. Two minutes. Two minutes you hear me. Then puking or not you're getting up!" He released her arm and she fell back onto the slippery trail, face down in the mud.

Two minutes. She had two minutes to do something.

"Sawyer, where are the guns?"

"You're in my light."

"Sawyer! Where are the fucking guns!"

"My, my! Such language Doc." Sawyer drawled, looking up from his book to see Jack towering over him, breathing hard.

"Give them to me. Now."

"And just why should I do that? Look at all the trouble I just went to to get 'em? Hell, I know I said y'all needed to come see me to get one, but shit doc I ain't a damned charity. Man's got to make a living." He put his novel down over the gun in his lap and took off his glasses. "Let's see what you're offering first."

"Kate's missing. Looks like some one has taken her. Maybe these 'Others'." Locke interrupted, cutting right to it. Sawyer looked up at him from his lounge chair. The tracker was sweating like one of his boars, covered in mud and twigs and there was an adrenaline charged edge to his voice that Sawyer had to admire. The guy sure could act. Better than old Jacko, standing there snorting through his nostrils like an angry bull. Ana-Lucia and Hurley were sticking to the background: extras in this sad ass movie.

"Didn't you hear what John said?" Jack suddenly demanded. "What the hell is the matter with you? Kate has been kidnapped-"

"I heard." Sawyer said mildly. This was not as much fun as he thought it was going to be. "Heard your little performance earlier too."

"What?"

"I might have dropped out of school at 14 doc, but I'm not an idiot and I been playing this game for longer than you been cutting folks up and stichin' 'em back together." Jack just blinked at him, stunned. "Oh, what? I'm supposed to fall for this crap and come running after you all into them big ol' bushes.

"Why don't I make it real easy for you then? Come on now, where you got Mr Baghdad stashed? Point the way and make sure to tell him to have all his bamboo sticks sharpened to go. I sure do hate to wait. Hope it ain't far though, I didn't bring my running shoes."

"You're insane." Jack finally responded. "You think we're making this up?"

"I know you are." He locked eyes with the other man, staring hard. Game over.

"Forget him Jack." Ana-Lucia suddenly spoke up from the background. She stepped forward. "Leave it. We're losing time. John, you got some knives right?"

"Yes."

"There are enough of us for knives to work in our favour, but if we don't move we're going to miss any chance at all. Come on!" She pulled on Jack's arm. "Come on!"

"You- You're unbelievable." Jack almost whispered, something more than disgust in his voice – something closer to horror. Sawyer frowned, perturbed by the intensity of the act. Jack let himself be pulled backward, but could not seem to break eye contact. Sawyer watched as they headed towards John's tent, and his knife stash.

That was almost too easy, but Jack's last little theatrical flare had seemed too good, like it was…

"Good morning Claire." A familiar voice suddenly said from a distant tent. The words came born by the gusty breeze that was stirring loose grains of sand all along the beach. An accented voice.

Sawyer froze as Sayid suddenly crawled out of his tent, hair sticking up in tufts, clothing rumpled and creased from sleeping in it. The novel dropped into the sand, forgotten, as he watched Claire sit down in front of the tent; watched Sayid reach out to touch Aaron's head where the Australian had him cradled in her lap. The Iraqi sat back, yawned, and scratched his chest.

Oh Christ… Abruptly there was not enough oxygen left in the air. Oh Christ no! He'd fucked up. Jack wasn't lying. For a moment he could not move. Kate: kidnapped. Gone. Taken. Hurt maybe. Maybe dea- A memory of her: in his arms on the bunk bed that first time as he cradled her to his chest as she slept, marvelling at the slender delicate body pressed so close to his. He remembered that first rush of feeling and felt moist heat push behind his eyes.

It would not take much for a man of his size, or even Charlie's, to do some terrible damage to that slight body. Particularly if that man felt he had motive. Jack had said there was blood. So she had fought, like he knew she would, he thought with pride. But it seemed that all she had done was give the bastard motive.

Sawyer's gaze switched to Charlie's tent. He remembered the Englishman's over zealous actions with Sun and wondered briefly if the little bastard had taken to his new sport and made Kate his next victim. Charlie was sitting hunched over his knees, staring out to sea. No. Sawyer knew broken when he saw it and Charlie had begged him not to ever tell Sun what he had done. He had to know that all deals were off if he dared even to look sideways at Kate. And no one was talking to him so he had no chance to conspire this fast with anyone else.

So that left only these 'Others'. Again. Fucking bastards. He'd kill them. Kill every last fucking one.

"Jack! Hold up!" Sawyer bellowed across the sand to where the four would be rescuers were waiting impatiently for Locke to retrieve his knives. He was already halfway across the beach to them by the time they looked up. "How many guns do you think we're gonna need?"

"Who are you?" Kate asked. She had been lying still for nearly two minutes wracking her brains trying to find someway out of this, but could think of nothing. Except perhaps, trying to talk her way out of it. Not one of her strong suits, but she had nothing else left. She had tried fighting, but all that had accomplished was to bloody his nose and her lip and eye.

There was no reply, but her captor was nearby: she could hear him breathing and fidgeting. She could smell his sour sweat through the stench of mud and wet leaves. He smelled of fear. It gave her hope.

"I- I'm Kate. What's your-"

"Shut up!" The sudden screech made her jump and shutdown any hopes she had to engage him, to win him over. The man was just too scared, too desperate. She froze, terrified. "Just shut up. Don't talk."

"Sorry, I-"

"Up! Up!" He was suddenly over her, she could feel his body heat. He grabbed her upper arms and lifted. When he had her on her feet he shoved a hand into her back. She stumbled forward. "Move!"

"My head. I feel faint. I think I have a concussion."

"Move!" Her kidnapper screeched again and she flinched from the hysteria. He shoved again and she staggered forward and went down onto one knee, feigning a dizzy spell. She was taking more than a chance here, the man was obviously desperate to the point of crazed, but if she didn't find a way to stop him then she was finished. She knew it. She went down, face down into the mud, again.

A soft metallic click suddenly came from behind her right ear. Oh god. She shut her eyes, squeezed them tight. He pressed the gun against her head and she felt the tiny pressure like a ton weight. Her breath roared like the ocean in her ears. Her heart boomed.

"Get up." The whisper was a quiet terrifying calm, and slithered into her ear like a snake's hiss. She didn't move. "I know you're faking.

"I'm going to count to three and then you're going to get up or I'm going to shoot you. My orders didn't require I bring you back alive. One." Kate didn't move. "Two." A bird twittered nearby, oblivious to the murder about to happen. She felt like crying, but the tears blocked in her throat. How much had happened since she had come to this place. And now it had come to this. Surprisingly she found herself thinking of yesterday morning, when she had challenged Sawyer to chase her along the beach. That look he had given her: affectionate, heated, playful, just a little bit uncertain, just a little bit dangerous, she had only just begun to learn who he was, but that expression seemed to encapsulate him like no other and she saw him now clear as day. She should never have walked away from his tent last night no matter how hurt and bewildered she was. She should have stayed like she had learned she had to, to invade his personal space and stay there until she could break through that thick skull of his. She should have grabbed him and shaken him. She should have marched back in there this morning and taken him on head to head. She should have-

"Three."

A gunshot echoed faintly across the beach. Every head turned toward the jungle.

"Sawyer wait!" Sawyer heard Jack's yell, but ignored it. He had his bearings now. He didn't need a tracker. Absolute terror gave such power to his muscles that he was plunging into the jungle before Jack's last word had been swept away by the gusty breeze. He tore his own path into the foliage until he connected with the trail that lead to the stream then he turned towards the inland and began to sprint.

Hold on. Hold on, I'm coming baby. I'm coming!

END CHAPTER


	7. Chapter 7

CHapter 7

Kate jerked, terrified beyond thinking, as the gun fired – into the air. She froze again, but it was too late, she had given herself away.

"Get up." The man ordered. "Or the next one goes home."

"You're lying. They told you to bring me back alive." She retorted, shocked at how calm she sounded to herself. Shocked that she had spoken at all. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Oh yes you are."

A hand suddenly grabbed her by the hair and pulled. Hard. She cried out. It hurt worse than the yanking on her arms and involuntarily she scrambled to her feet. Tears of pain joined the already drying tracks on her cheeks. The hand disappeared from her hair and shoved into her back again.

"Move!" He ordered. And she did, stumbling and inching her way blindly forward. Her mind was continuing to churn. She had to find some other way, some new way to slow him down without getting shot. Although, from the half-stories, telling silences and the pinched faces of Ana-Lucia and Mr Eko she should probably consider being shot as a preferred option. Despair and terror clutched at her throat like clawing hands.

"Kate!" A voice suddenly bellowed, roared, out of the jungle behind her. Sawyer? Oh thank god! Oh god no – her captor still had his gun!

"Sawyer! Gun!" She screamed back, spinning around, and straight into her kidnapper's backhander. Her head snapped back with the force of the blow and she fell for a third time. This time she was legitimately stunned and lay limp on the ground senses reeling, everything dull and spinning and flashing in and out of existence even though all she could see was the inside of the Hessian bag.

A gun fired somewhere close. And then again.

No! Sawyer. She blinked, but the world continued to spin and she felt her stomach contract with the nausea that followed it. She groaned, rolling onto her side momentarily completely absorbed with the misery of it.

"Kate!" She heard Sawyer call out again. She tried to respond, but suddenly she was yanked upwards again and held there - this time under the arms and against her captor's chest. She could feel the skinny ribcage rising and falling in fast terror-filled breaths against her back.

"Stop!" He kidnapper screamed, panicking again. Then suddenly she felt him freeze, facing down the way they had come and she knew Sawyer had shown himself. "Don't come any closer or I'll shoot! I'll fucking shoot her!"

"Oh no you won't Billy Bob!" Sawyer responded from somewhere in front of them. "Take that gun off me long enough to try and I'll put one between those bug eyes of yours.

"You all right there Freckles?" She couldn't answer with anything more than a groan. Her face was throbbing where the tree root and her kidnapper had both struck her and if felt swollen to the size of a grapefruit already. He jaw felt too stiff to move and if she tried she knew she would be violently sick. As it was, her legs were like jelly and without the arm across her chest she would fall to the ground in a heap. This time the concussion was real and she could do no more to help herself than listen to the two men bargain over her life.

"Back off!" Her captor squealed again. "I'm taking her back with me."

"I don't think so pal. You leave this spot and I'll shoot you."

"No you won't – you'll hit her too." Her captor dragged her back a step.

"Maybe." Sawyer agreed. "But if it's that or lettin' you take her on back to InbredCounty, I'm willin' to risk it. Are you?"

"You wouldn't." Her captor bleated, his terror making his voice shake, but then he seemed to calm a fraction. "Sawyer: I know that name.

"I've been watching your camp. I've seen you. I've seen you with her and how you look at her. You wouldn't dare shoot and risk hitting her. You're bluffing."

"Well now," the southerner responded after a moment. His voice was incredibly calm, composed but utterly confrontational, completely 'Sawyer'. She could imagine that back in the World this was how he operated all the time. She hoped he realised just how terrified and explosive his opponent was. "You been watching huh? Seems you ain't been watchin' too close then bubba if you think I'm bluffin'.

"Nobody takes what's mine and gets away with it. Got a whole shanty town of pissed off people to back me on that one."

"You won't shoot." The man stepped back again and Kate could hear the confidence growing in his voice the longer Sawyer held fire. "You won't." He took another step back.

"Stop!" Sawyer commanded, still completely fiercely calm.

"No." Her captor responded more calmly, and he started a slow retreat. Kate tried to stop him, tried to dig in her heels, but the track here was nothing but mud and she could not stop herself being slowly dragged away.

Then someone fired. So close Kate felt the draft of the bullet pass by even through the bag. She almost shrieked. Her captor stumbled, but stopped – clearly still alive and unharmed.

"I said: stop!" Sawyer said after the echoing ricochet of the bullet had faded. "Not another fucking step.

"That was your last chance asshole. I'm fresh outa patience with you. Now, you got yourself two options and only one of them wins you a 'Get out of jail free' card. Why don't you have a guess just what that might be."

"I- I'm not alone." The man stuttered, still holding her tight. She could feel him vibrating with fear, but she doubted Sawyer was the primary cause of most of it. He had been terrified since he had grabbed her by the mango trees, even when he had clearly had the upper hand.

"Oh don't try that shit with me son. Don't try to kid a kidder. Now, let her go and you can go on your merry way back to the swamp or wherever the hell it is you folks sprung from. I got no problem with you people, just so long as you stay on your side of this rock." Sawyer offered, still in that same tightly controlled tone.

"No!" Her captor suddenly lunged backwards with her. His homegrown terror was no match for Sawyer's offer. This was it! This was the point of no return. Kate struggled as much as her spinning head would allow.

"Sawyer!" She screamed.

"Stop!" She heard Sawyer's bellow. Boots slapped on mud and her captor suddenly wrenched her to one side – away from his chest. The world swooped and she gagged as the concussion surged with the movement.

Someone fired again. Twice. As fast as a trigger could be pulled. But this time there was no slicing of the air near her, no telltale stumble by her captor. Something hit the muddy track with a wet sliding slap. Oh god!

"Sawyer! Sawyer! Answer me." She shrieked, cold fear suddenly overwhelming the concussion and she felt her head clear with a snap. "No! You bastard!"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He made me do it. He made me!" The man behind her suddenly babbled.

"You bastard." Kate screamed. "Sawyer! Sawyer!" Her voice broke in an hysterical sob. "Please answer me."

"I'm sorry. He made me." The kidnapper repeated and he resumed dragging her away. "He made me!" He sounded as hysterical as she was.

"That all you got Billy Bob?"

"Sawyer!" Oh thankyou god, thank you! She turned her head back and forth, trying to see through the weave.

"Take more than that to put me down you asshole. Now I said: let her go." The southerner rasped. "Let her go or I'm gonna kill you. LET HER-"

The shot that sounded next was like punctuation and she knew what had happened even before the silence told her. She howled and exploded in the murderer's grip. She kicked and thrashed and tried to find the man's head with her own. Adrenaline, grief and rage gave her a strength that he just could not deal with with one arm and within seconds she was free – stumbling forward screaming one name over and over and over.

All around her there was suddenly screaming. A gun fired. Feet slapped passed her. Screams again. A cacophony of disconnected roaring shrieking panic and anger. She thought she heard Jack bellowing something, but none of that mattered. She skidded and stumbled forward, blind and screaming that one word. But no one answered her. She fumbled at the hood, tearing it away. Light and colour streamed in to her eyes, dazzling her with their vibrancy and slicing excruciatingly into her eyes. The jungle daylight seemed to stab right into her head and she staggered and fell, overcome.

"Sawyer!"

"Kate!" Jack was suddenly by her side and his large hands grabbed at her shoulders. He pulled her to him and grabbed her chin, his face creased in horror. "God. What did he do to you?"

"Jack!" John suddenly called and she was being dragged again. This time by Jack as he drew her with him across the mud towards a crumpled shape. She watched in speechless horror as John rolled the limp body over onto his back. She saw three neat holes in the shirt, one over the right side of his chest, another lower down and near by a third.

"Oh no, no, no, no! Sawyer!" Her voice cracked and trembled into a sharp sob as she reached for him. She grabbed his face, feeling the stubble scratch her hands, feeling him still warm. There was blood on his lips. "Sawyer! Oh god. No!" Images of another dead man flashed before her. The same horror filled her now, the same terror. Her fault. All of this was her fault.

"Kate! John, get her back."

John obeyed and she didn't struggle - it was all a horrifying blur. She watched, numb, as Jack grabbed for Sawyer's throat, fingers looking for a pulse that she knew he would not find. She saw him tear open the shirt and shut her eyes against the sight. The world seemed to spiral down. She was falling.

"He's not breathing!" She heard Jack yell from a long way away. "John, I need your help!"

Her fault. All of it.

She let herself fall into the abyss and was gone.

END CHAPTER


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Consciousness returned in pieces, in ragged, jagged, slicing fragments. A voice here, a movement there, smell, touch, even taste. They whirled and spun like confetti trapped within a tornado, speeding passed too fast for more than fleeting comprehension. Indistinct murmurings. Warm scratching of woollen blankets. Smooth damp linen against skin. Faint antiseptic in the air that almost, but not quite, smothered the sour stink of drying jungle mud and fear sweat. And behind all that, like a stage backdrop, the telling cocooning silence of an underground space.

And pain – a deep throbbing aching pain that stabbed right in deep to the tender core as mercilessly as lightening splitting a tree trunk. The sort of sickening agony that denies attentiveness to anything but it and pushes the world back onto the distant fringes of awareness. So there was sickening spinning and tilting and wheeling and throbbing misery and nothing else. Words swirled down from the tornado, raining down from above and spattering impotently against a near insensate mind -

"How is she?"

"Still out… really did a number on her… feel a lot better when she wakes up."

"… worried."

"Head injuries… always… but two in less than a week… in unconsciousness? … Yeah, I'm worried."

"Is there anything that I can do to help her? To help you?"

"Not unless you can… ER out of coconuts… mangoes. But thanks anyway. Hey, Eko? Charlie… a priest?"

"Yes… pray for her… for him."

Him. Kate struggled to open her eyes as that one word penetrated her reeling, spinning, pained senses and struck home. Him.

"Hey, hey. Kate? It's Jack. Shh, it's OK. Kate can you hear me?"

But the world began to fragment again and she fell between the cracks with a cry of despair, disappearing back into the abyss.

"Kate!"

Him…

Him.

He visited her, when the underground place she was in was dark and still.

Pale and ghostly, he sat by her bed and watched her. His eyes, so expressive in life, reduced to bleak dark shadowed holes in the darkness – so black against his pallid face – so that she could hardly bare to look at him despite the desperate desire to do just that – to hold onto whatever she could of him, even a shadow of a memory. Sometimes his lips moved. Forming silent pleas that would go forever unanswered, cries for help that would be forever unmet. When he called to her she would squeeze her eyes shut in an agony that surpassed the sloping tilting torture that throbbed and stabbed inside her skull.

'Why didn't you shoot? Why?'

It was all her fault.

'Why did you leave me behind?'

When she woke at last, to find the world back in one piece and everything where it should be the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was the inside of the Hatch. The bunkroom. Above her, the familiar metallic grey of the top bunk.

Oh god… Not here, anywhere but here.

Grief rose up in her throat.

"Morning." A voice suddenly said and she turned her head to see John sitting beside her bed, book in one hand and a cup in the other. His face was creased in a delighted, if cautious smile. Then he frowned. "Kate? Can you hear me?" She continued to stare at him.

She might have tried to speak but, her throat felt raw, as if she had been crying for days, and as she moved her lips the she registered the pull of tight swollen skin across the left side of her face. Where that - 'Other' - had hit her. Before he had-

"Kate?" John's soft voice came swooping towards her and she felt his rough palm touch her forehead. She didn't move. She couldn't. Grief had suddenly made her into stone. "I'll get Jack."

John's boots were loud against the concrete floor as he left the room – moving fast. She stared at the bunk above her and tried to fight the fresh swell of grief that was rising inside her, not wanting to breakdown here. She pressed her lips into a thin hard line. Sawyer, James, was dead. Gone. Buried by now. They had to do it fast in this tropical heat. Where did they put him? Beside Shannon? Or did they take him away from the beach to some more remote spot – as alone in death as he had been in life. God. No. She couldn't stop it and tears streamed down both temples. They wouldn't. They couldn't. She knew Jack wouldn't allow it no matter how he felt about the other man. None of that mattered anymore. But if the others had somehow - she couldn't bare it.

A jagged sob burst through her tightly pressed lips and she sat up with a jerk. She had to see. Suddenly, she had to see the spot where they had put him. Had to touch it, lay herself down on it and dig her fingers into the fresh turned soil and scream and cry and - Head swimming with an agony that had nothing to do with her injuries, Kate threw aside the blankets and swung her legs over the side of the bunk bed.

"Freckles-?" A faint murmur. A wisp of memory carried on the quiet buzzing hum of the Hatch's air flow system. Damn this room. Damn its memories. It was suddenly too much. She had to get out. Had to run. She wobbled to her feet. "Hey."

That wasn't a memory!

She suddenly realised that the room was a lot smaller than it should be. There was a makeshift cot filling most of the floor space. And on that cot, wrapped in dark layers of blankets, pale as death but blinking slowly was her visiting ghost-

"Sawyer." She breathed the word and stared, frozen. Her thoughts froze with her and all she could do was stare transfixed. Then as fast as she had frozen, she shattered. And began to shake. Tremors like a terrible fever almost felled her. What- ?

She moved. Across the small space in a split second, down on her knees by the bed and his face, stubble rough against her fingers, his lips warm and alive and moving against hers. She was shaking, sobbing, mindless with joy and grief and shock and she couldn't stop touching him, kissing his lips, his cheeks, his warm living face. She squeezed her eyes shut, pushed the tears back and pressed her forehead against his and then pulled back to look at him once more. He was still blinking at her, slow and heavy, and his face was so ashen that each bruise, each healing cut, was as vivid as an ink mark. He didn't move. Didn't make a sound.

"Sawyer?"

She frowned suddenly, and slipped her hands from his face down to the thick woollen blanket that had been pulled across his chest like a shawl, one wing wrapped over the other. She hesitated, swallowed, and then she pulled at the coverings and –

Brusies. Deep, blue black thundercloud discoloration spread across his skin, beginning to mottle yellow at the edges, but still only bruises where there should be something far far worse.

"What-?"

"Body armour." Jack suddenly spoke from behind her. His voice was quiet and almost blended with the hum of the Hatch.

"What?" She repeated stupidly, still staring at the blackened skin of Sawyer's chest and ribs, unable to look away from the sight of him breathing. Breathing… Alive.

"He found a vest amongst the weapons he stole." John said and she turned to look at the two men in the doorway, stunned. John's mouth quirked in a brief bemused smile. What? Had Sawyer somehow planned things? Had he known what had happened and equipped himself? She returned her gaze to the supine man – to watch him breathe – and knew there was more to it than that. But right now she didn't care. She reached out to feel his ribs move. He was alive! The time for questions would come later. An inexpressible magnitude of joy suddenly surged within her. "We didn't know about it either until afterwards. Sayid said he'd never seen a make like it." John continued.

"Sawyer-" She whispered. Oh god. She felt a fresh reef of tears suddenly push at her and she grimaced, trying to hold them back. Sawyer watched her but did not react. He continued his silent placid stare, but a frown line had appeared in his forehead as he watched her. She remembered Jack's call of alarm that Sawyer had not been breathing and immediately thought, alarmed: oxygen deprivation. "What's wrong with him?" She turned to look back at the doctor.

"He's ok. I- I put sleeping pills in his water." He said ruefully. "He wouldn't stay in the cot and I got sick of putting him back in it, so I- Well, I learned from the best." She remembered the day she had done the just that to Jack, remembered his pale exhausted face and his muzzy disconnection as he'd succumbed to the drugs. She looked back at Sawyer's dopey expression.

"So, so, he's going to be ok then?"

"If he stays put." Jack came to her side and knelt down. He reached across and pulled the blankets back into place. "There don't seem to be any broken bones and no serious internal damage as far as I can tell without the proper equipment. But his vitals are stable and he hasn't shown any signs of internal bleeding, so-" Jack turned to look inquiringly at her. "I - We were more worried about you."

"Me?"

"Two concussion events in less than a week, Kate." She saw some bleak memory flash in his eyes, before he turned fully and took her arms in his hands. "You need to go back to bed yourself. I need to check you out."

"No – I want to-"

"Don't make me spike your water too. We've only got so many sleeping pills left."

"No." She was suddenly determined, but Jack matched her measured stare and she knew she didn't have the strength to fight him. She was too tired, too overcome. There were tears still pushing behind her eyes and the strain of holding them back was taking every ounce of strength she had left. "Not yet Jack. Please."

"All right. But not long. I'll be back in two minutes and then you are going back to bed if I have to staple you in."

Jack was good to his word and two minutes later she was back in the bunk bed, leaving Sawyer to the drugged slumber that he had rapidly succumbed to.

"Tell me what happened." She asked when Jack had finished his exam and had pulled the bedding back up to her chin.

"You should sleep." He responded and glanced at the doorway. Kate saw the flash of his eyes, caught the tiny twitch of his eyes and mouth and frowned at him. Was that guilt? "What's going on? Jack?"

"Sleep Kate." He began to rise up from the bed.

"Jack!" She grabbed his wrist. "Tell me what's going on. I'm not a china doll and I've had worse than this so stop treating me like I'm going to break. Please, tell me what's going on!"

"He's here."

"Who?" She asked, knowing exactly who he was referring to. Fear spiked inside her. Then anger…

"The man who attacked you. He's locked up in the store room."

"What? And when were you going to tell me this?"

"Kate-"

"I'm not a child!" She struggled against the blankets. "I want to see-"

"No! John and Sayid have things – under control - and you need to stay in bed and stay calm.

"I've already had this argument once and I'm not going to have it again!" She knew who he'd argued with and thinking of Sawyer made her hesitate.

"Then tell me what happened to him. Out there. If he was wearing a bullet proof vest at that distance-"

"Sayid doesn't understand it either. He took the vest to study, but yes, at that distance and with the gun Henry was using-"

"Henry? His name is Henry? He just told you that?" Kate couldn't believe it. The man had been so crazed with fear that she could not believe that he had just told- Oh no. "You didn't."

"They- we had to know who he was." Jack said, eyes dropping to his clasped hands. She watched the knuckles whiten and his lips press firmly together.

"Sayid and-"

"John."

"And you-?"

"You need your rest." Jack suddenly stood up.

"Jack!"

"He kidnapped you Kate. He hurt you. He shot Sawyer. He's one of Them and we have to know why he did it to protect ourselves." Jack responded in a clipped tone, and she could hear the rehearsal in his voice. He had evidently been thinking about this a long long time, trying to find a way to justify it breaking his oaths as a physician. "Go to sleep. I'm going to be just outside this door, so if you need anything-?" He left the statement hanging. For the first time she saw the red rimmed eyes, the unshaved cheeks and the ragged sweat stained clothing. He must have been attending to his patients without stopping for who knew how long and on top of that he had been forced into stand by impotently while torture was committed again. She felt immediately contrite and nodded, sinking back into the bed and pulling the covers up.

"Good night." Jack nodded at her as he flipped the light switch and pulled the door shut behind him. In the gloom, Kate looked towards Sawyer's cot, listened to his drugged half snores and thought about Henry so nearby and couldn't help a frisson of reactive fear and anger even though she knew that he was locked up and had been on the receiving end of Sayid's questioning. She fell asleep watching the pale smudge of Sawyer's face and listening to the rhythmic cadence of his breathing.

During her sleep she dreamed he left his cot, came to her bed and kissed her. She dreamed of his lips on hers and his warm living breath against her skin; his rough palm against her cheek, her forehead. She dreamed he told her he loved her.

When she awoke the next morning Sawyer's cot was empty.

END CHAPTER


	9. Chapter 9

CHapter 8

Jack's drug cocktail wore off sometime in the very early morning and Sawyer woke to a sand paper dry throat and a foggy head. He peeled open his eyes and blinked in the suffocating darkness – fuck he hated this damned hole in the ground! He hated the skin crawlingly dull thud of approaching footsteps outside the door. Hated the way the door muffled the voices behind it. It raised too many ghosts; too many memories. He tried to swallow and winced.

"You're lucky to be alive." Jack had said to him as he poked and prodded at the bruises across his torso and scolded his patient at the same time for mouthing off at him.

"Says who?" Sawyer snapped back, grabbing onto the sides of the cot and hissing as the good doctor tried to feel his backbone through his chest. He had woken, ornery, strangely breathless and in a good deal of hurt, just now to find himself buried in the goddamn Hatch with Jack hovering over him with evil intent.

"Says Sayid. You should have sustained injuries worse than this."

"Sorry to disappoint. I'll do better next time." He groused just as Jack found a particularly sore spot. "Fucking hell, do you have to do this?"

"Yes. And if you do plan on doing this again: don't expect me to resuscitate you again."

"You what?"

"Mouth to mouth." Sayid suddenly spoke from the peanut gallery behind Jack. There was a wicked smile in his voice.

"You what! Get off me. Get off!"

"Relax Sawyer." Jack responded with some exasperation.

"Relax? Why the fuck-?"

"Blunt force trauma. The force of the bullets caused a shock to the area of impact. Put simply: you were winded."

"Put simply: get the fuck off me!"

"I didn't do it for fun! You weren't breathing." Jack shook his head, pulling the blankets back into place. He stood up slowly, wearily. "And: you're welcome." He left the room under a steely glare. Sayid didn't follow, and the smile Sawyer had heard in his voice was on his lips. He continued to stare at the prone man.

"What the hell do you want Mohammad, this ain't no sideshow?"

"I want to talk to you about this vest."

"What about it?"

"It wasn't with the guns. Where did you get it?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Yes, I would actually. That is why I am asking."

"How much is it worth?"

"Two packets of cigarettes."

"Where did you get those?"

"Wouldn't you like to know? So, is it a deal?"

"Love to help you there Chuckles, but I don't smoke anymore – had to do the cold turkey thing a few weeks back."

"I don't think so."

"Oh yeah, and how would you know?"

"Jack told me." The Iraqi replied, his smile broadening into a shit eating grin. Sawyer glared.

"Yeah, well. Next time I'll remember to chew a fucking mint before getting 'winded'." He retorted, glaring. "Show me the stuff."

Now, Sawyer rocked painfully to one side to grab the glass of water that seemed never to run dry no matter how many times he drained it. He sipped at it and looked across the room. There was a long silhouette on the bunk bed and whisper quiet tiny snores coming through a badly bruised nose. The doc told him it wasn't broken, that there wasn't a broken bone between them, but he wasn't so sure. He remembered long hours sitting at her bedside listening to that breathing, waiting for her to wake and it hadn't sounded right to him then, and it still didn't.

But she was alive: alive and snoring. Everything else was detail. And for once, detail didn't matter squat.

He didn't need to the light to be on to be able to 'see' the heavy bruising running down the left side of her face, nor the swelling along that fine cheekbone – or the faint tear tracks. She had cried in her sleep, in that terrifying half-sleep that she had drifted through these last few days. He had hauled himself to her bedside time and time again, trying everything he could think of to make her stop, but in the end he had the pattern figured out: she only cried when he was there, when she opened her bleary eyes and saw him, or heard him speak. The hurt he had seen in her on the beach was coming out in waves and it was more than he could take. It drove him to his feet and set him on a path back to his tent, but Jack had already spiked his water and he didn't make it passed the door before he was on his knees.

He dumped the empty water glass back onto the floor and turned his gaze away from the bunk and its delicate occupant.

Slowly the southerner pushed himself upright on the bed, gritting his teeth and hissing as the pressure on his chest and ribs grew from a dull surface ache into a sharply penetrating stab. It made the older pain in his shoulder seem like a tiny pinch. He paused for a moment, took some shallow experimental breaths and then swung his legs over the side of the cot. Grunted.

"Fuck." He cursed in a rasping whisper. "Fuck."

"You shouldn't be getting up. Jack told you to stay put."

"Yeah, well." Sawyer didn't even bother looking up at Locke who had stopped by the partially open door. It was too damn difficult to get up and talk at the same time. He pushed up right, got himself steady – hadn't been so hard to do that since he'd got himself shot the first time – snagged his shirt from the nearby seat and turned to stare at the older man. "You gonna turn me in?"

"No." Locke replied evenly. He was munching on a mango slice. "I'm just making some soup. I kept a few tins from the stores here. It's minestrone." There was an invitation in that statement and Sawyer turned a suspicious eye on the tracker. He pressed a hand gingerly to his ribs.

"What do you want?" He asked.

"To talk." Locke answered bluntly, not even trying subterfuge.

"'Bout what? I don't got a single thing to say to you: you took my stuff."

"You took my guns."

"You took them back. That don't make us even."

"You gave them."

"What?"

"You gave them back. The guns. You didn't have to do that. You were armed enough for all four of us." Locke responded and Sawyer was momentarily stymied. He frowned, perturbed – he hadn't even thought about that. Not even at the time he had done it. He'd just opened up his new safe like it was bargain Tuesday. "Now, the soup is almost done. Do you want some or not?"

They retreated quietly into the Hatch, Sawyer, still rattled by Locke's allegation, pulling the door to the bunkroom closed. Kate hadn't even twitched all through this conversation right next to her bed and Sawyer had no intention of waking her now. John lead the way to the kitchenette and true to his word there was soup on the boil. The sweet aroma filled the small room and Sawyer's stomach grumbled right on cue.

"Sit." Locke indicated the table with a spoon that he had picked up. Sawyer looked towards the table and saw, across the room, Jack sacked out on the sofa. One of his arms was hanging down; the back of one hand was resting on the floor. He had to squint to see the man's chest moving and it perturbed him further that he should give a shit about Saint Jack that he should care if he was breathing or not. Even more off kilter and getting angrier, Sawyer sat. And a bowl of steaming soup was put on the table in front of him. Lock sat down across from him, blocking his view of the sofa. "Eat."

"Talk." Sawyer responded stubbornly. He left the spoon on the table.

"All right." Locke nodded around another spoonful and looked into his bowl like it was suddenly filled with gold. "Ooh, that's good." Sawyer stared at him. "I saw the gun." He went on, dipping his spoon back into the bowl.

"Well, bully for you." Sawyer retorted. Screw this. He had better things to do with his time than this. He made to get up.

"There was no clip. You went up there, after Kate with a gun with no clip and only a single round in the chamber. Why?"

"What can I say: I'm a thrill seeker." He pushed himself up from the table. "Now if that's the best you do, I've got-"

"I think you set yourself up to get shot-"

"Oh sure. It was so much fun the first time."

"-take the hits, you have your vest, and get Henry there to empty his gun. He can't shoot Kate. Or anyone else. You've disarmed him." He spooned up more soup. "The part I can't figure out is why you left the clip out of your gun."

"'Henry'? That, that asshole who took Kate. He's here? Where?"

"Tell me why your gun wasn't loaded."

"Tell me why I shouldn't put my fist through your face." Sawyer glared at Locke, but as usual it had no effect. "Fine. I'll find him myself." And he took off from the table. Locke didn't follow.

In the end, he didn't need to go far.

Sayid emerged from the old store room, wiping his hands on a rag. Behind him, coming from the poorly lit room, there was a familiar sound of misery and fear. Sawyer stopped dead, suddenly chilled. He and the Iraqi stared at each other and the southerner found his mouth parched anew. All of his anger, his heated notions of revenge suddenly extinguished.

"I am glad to see you are feeling better." Sayid said, still standing in the doorway and calm and detached as a fucking stoner.

"Yeah." Sawyer managed, suddenly scrambling for control, desperately trying to rekindle his anger. Trying to call up those images of Kate's injuries. "That him?"

"Yes."

"Henry."

"Yes."

"He talking?"

"Yes."

"And?" He prompted, irritated.

"And, his name is Henry. He is one of those people Rousseau calls: the Others. He came here to kidnap one of us return to his camp on the other side of the island."

"I could have told you that El-Wolsingham. You been sticking your bamboo sticks into the guy for days now and that's all you got?"

"No, that is all I that have 'verified'." The other man responded, and Sawyer tried not to swallow and give himself away, again: he knew exactly what that meant. Fuck. He watched Sayid pull the door closed and turn the key. He put the key into his jeans pocket.

"I want to talk to him."

"No."

"No? You get to 'verify' shit for days I can't even talk to him?"

"It's not appropriate."

"What the fuck does that mean – 'not appropriate'?"

"Sawyer, you seem to forget that all of us are threatened by these 'Others'. It is not about who gets to do what, it is not about personal revenge, it is about the process. It is about obtaining information." Sayid pushed the red smeared rag into his pocket and Sawyer saw the damaged knuckles for the first time, he saw the lines of sweat on the brown skin, and the red-rimmed eyes. So, he thought, the man's not as cool and detached as he'd like to appear. Then he remembered Shannon.

"That's your 'process'?" He indicated Sayid's hands and narrowed his eyes. "Seems a mite personal to me. Seems that you've decided that you're the only one entitled to a little bit of payback."

"Henry did not shoot Shannon."

"No." Sawyer agreed. "But he's sure paying for it, ain't he?"

"He has valuable information and he will give it to us." Sayid responded, trying to steer the conversation back his way but utterly failing to disguise the bitter hatred and grief in his eyes. The two men stared at one another, a split second of shared feeling charging the air between them. Then it was over and the Iraqi was moving passed Sawyer. The blond man reached out to stop him, grabbing him.

"When you're done-" He said, leaving the statement hanging – and the other man nodded. Sawyer released him and turned back to stare at the locked door. The key he'd taken from Sayid's pocket pressed its sharp edges into his palm.

Sawyer went back to the bunkroom, passing Locke at the kitchen sink and Jack on his sofa and acknowledging neither, and found his boots. He knew exactly what had to be done here and he had to move fast. It hurt like a bitch, but within moments he had his boots on, shirt buttoned and had downed a bunch of painkillers from the bottle by his cot. Preparations made, he turned to the bunk bed and stared at the sleeping body. Even under the layers of blankets, and through the gloom of the darkened room, he could clearly see every curve, every hollow, every sweet contour of her body. And he remembered her tears. He remembered how she had not been able to bear looking at him. She had finally seen him for what he was and part of him was glad of it, glad to be released from the heavy burden of her love – a small part. Every other part felt ripped open and torn to shreds. But despite being set free he knew now that he could never fulfil his promise if he continued to be near her like this. He had turned over his arsenal and destroyed himself for her without even realising what he was doing, and now the whole fucking beach knew that all they had to do to control him, to make him 'behave', was threaten Kate. He had flirted with his own ruin and had fallen, and he knew it, Jack knew it, Sayid knew it, every-fucking-body knew it.

Without him realising it, his feet had carried him across the short space to her bed and he pressed his lips to hers. Cupped her undamaged cheek in his hand and felt her stir against his palm.

"I love you." He whispered the terrible inescapable truth to her sleeping face. He loved her. Hopelessly. But he had made a promise and nothing must interfere with it, nothing – but maybe he could take some revenge for her before this night was out. Maybe he could do something right for her along the way to fulfilling his promise. He stroked her forehead, running his fingers through her long hair one last time and straightened up.

He left the room, heading for Henry's cell, without looking back.

END CHAPTER


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

The Hatch was quiet: Jack deep into an exhausted sleep dripping limbs off the sofa, Locke had moved from the sink and was once again playing Dave to the computer's HAL 2000; Sayid was no where in sight. Sawyer slipped silently along the wall, then across the darkened open space of the main Hatch area heading for the closed door of the store room. He pushed the key into the lock and turned it. The door opened inwards into darkness.

There was a scuffing sound in the depths of the narrow cell.

Sawyer slipped inside, reached out to flip the light switch and turned back to check the state of the inmate. He blinked when he saw what had become of him. Sonnavabitch. The bruised and bloody man blinked as well.

"You?" Henry croaked.

"Surprised to see me then Billy Bob?" Sawyer said, covering for his reaction with a wiseass sneer. "I told you it takes more than a few bullets to put me down?"

"Wh-what do you want?" The beaten man stuttered as he pushed himself into the corner. Still had enough pluck to ask questions of his own then, Sawyer thought. This 'Henry' had more in him than his appearance would suggest. Good, he was going to need it.

"Used to have so many answers to that one." Sawyer said from where he stood, despite the lingering pain in his chest, tall and imposing against the closed door. Henry's eyes grew round. "But I didn't come in here to pick up where Ol' Sayid left off, much as I'd like to. Don't have the time for all that. There's only one thing you gotta tell me: what do 'you' want?"

"What?"

"Seems to me, if you're as sane as you look, there's only one answer to that an' that's outa here. Maybe right out of the county." The man in the corner said nothing, but Sawyer did not miss the sudden gleam in his eyes. "Maybe right back to the swamp." The gleam was suddenly extinguished. Sawyer cocked his head, curious despite himself. "You and yours have a falling out then Chuckles?"

Silence.

"You don't want to go back? How come?" Sawyer prodded, but the man did not reply. Instead, he bit at his bruised lower lip. "Look, I don't got time for this bullshit. Any minute now Mr Baghdad's going to figure out his key's missing and guess where he's going to come to find it?"

That worked:

"I can't go back!"

"Why not?"

Silence.

"Ok, have it your way-"

"No! Wait! I can't go back without- without-"

"Without what?" Sawyer demanded, taking a threatening step towards Sayid's punching bag. The man's eyes bugged at him.

"Without one of you. I can't go back without one of you or… Or… It will be bad."

"Worse than this?" Sawyer asked, receiving another terrified silence. "That's why you been letting Sayid beat on you for so long? Well shit Hoss, you don't gotta go back. This is a big damn island-"

"They'll find me."

"How?"

Silence.

"Seems to me you got three choices." Sawyer said. "You either stay here an' let Captain A-rab finish what he's started. You take your chances out there, runnin'. Or you go back home with what you were sent out to get."

"What?" The man's battered features suddenly crumpled into complete bafflement as the words sank in. "You- you'd give me one of your people. You'd let me take them?" 'What kind of person are you?' Kate's words came back at him through the under currents of Henry's question.

"Oh, I can do one better than that Billy Bob." Sawyer said. "But its gonna cost ya."

"What do you want?" Henry asked, confidence suddenly strengthening his voice. He regarded Sawyer with the suspicion of a mark thinking he suddenly had some power in this situation. Thinking that the tables were finally turning.

"I want the boy. I want Walt."

"He's yours as well is he?" And now, sarcasm. Good.

"Far as your concerned this whole fucking side of the island is mine."

"They'll never give you Walt. And I don't have the power to give him to you."

"Didn't think you did, but I ain't above helping myself. Just need to get in close enough, an' you're my ticket inside."

"You! You're going to let me take you back?"

"Ain't no 'let' about it. You're 'gonna' take me back with you, an' I'm gonna go willing. But once I'm in, you'll help me take Walt."

"You're out of your mind. It- Its suicide. You don't know what they will do to you."

"There ain't much on this planet that ain't been done to me already Hoss. Besides, I'm comin' willin', and despite what you spied since coming to this side of the island: I can be mighty accomodatin' when I've a mind to.

"You do your bit to get Walt, an' you'll get yourself a co-operative lab rat or what the hell ever it is you people want. You don't an', well, you'll find out."

"You're crazy." The man said in a whisper, but Sawyer could see the desperate hope in his eyes. The sort that makes drowning men clutch at straws.

"Yeah." Sawyer agreed. "I been called that, and other things.

"Do we have a deal or not? Time's awasting and I got better places to be than here." He watched the cogs spin inside Cousin Henry's beaten in skull, watched them click and whirr through all sorts of his own connivings. It didn't much matter what Henry thought he was thinking up to turn the situation even more towards his own advantage. All that mattered was that he took them both back to Hick-town. Once there Henry was going to find that nothing was what it appeared.

"How do you know I won't just given you to them and leave you there? And not help you take Walt."

And there it was: the inevitable question.

"You'll help me." Sawyer told him. "Or I'll finish what Sayid started. And believe me: you don't want that to happen."

Henry regarded him with even more confidence now and he clearly could not see how this situation was not going to turn out 100% in his favour. Sucker. No matter where you went in this world there were always people willing to believe whatever lie came there way, just so long as it sounded like they were going to get what they wanted. And there were people like him: the liars who were only too willing to sell them what they wanted.

Sawyer watched Henry's confidence grow, thought of what he was about to do and tried to ignore, to hide, the pain in his chest and ribs and stand tall and fit as he needed to. It was a long hike to the other side of the island. From what he remembered of it, and that wasn't much, it had been hard even on those already fit. He was going to need more than a handful of painkillers if he was going to make it without making himself easy prey for the beaten, desperate man in front of him. He was going to need the whole damn bottle, and he was going to need a gun. Problem was he didn't know where the new gun stash was.

"Morning." Locke's voice suddenly sounded from outside the room and both men in the store room froze. Sawyer cocked his head towards the door and heard muffled voices. Then Locke again. He frowned. He bet the tracker knew where the new gun safe was…

LOSTLOSTLOSTLOST

Kate struggled free of the bedding, her eyes pinned on Sawyer's empty cot. Clearly, from the crumpled mess of his bed, he had thrown aside his own blankets, put on his own boots and shirt and left the room. She smiled to herself: he was feeling better. She knew that he hated Hatch, how he hated feeling smothered inside it, so the fact that he had been able to dress himself and walk out was a very good sign.

Now she just had to find him: they had to talk this out. They had to fight it out if necessary.

Despite his callous fuck-you attitude after he had stolen the guns, despite him pushing her away so violently, he had come rushing to help her in the jungle after she had fled the beach. Despite everything, he still loved her and she still loved him, but without intending to they were returning to type. Sawyer had begun to fight again and she had started to run.

It had to stop, or they had to. If they could not break old habits, it was going to get worse and worse until … She couldn't let it. She loved him and she knew that he loved her, but it wasn't going to be enough if they could not break this destructive cycle.

They had to talk.

Kate climbed cautiously out of the bunk, careful not to move too fast, but her head was clear this morning. All that was left was a dull ache that ran across her skull and down the side of her face. She stood and slowly moved around the room collecting up the rest of her clothing and dressing as fast as she could, and ran her fingers through her hair in a vain attempt to 'brush out' the tangles.

She padded from the room and into the quiet hum of the Hatch's communal space. Immediately she saw Jack across the room, asleep on the sofa and she paused. The events of last night came back to her: finding Sawyer alive, her talk with Jack, what John and Sayid had done, and Henry…

Henry.

Kate ran her gaze over the room, finding the store room and its closed door. Henry. She felt the same frisson of fear and anger that she had felt last night, but in the light of day the anger was stronger.

"Kate!" John's voice came from the right and she turned to find the tracker rising from behind the computer. He walked towards her. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine. Well, better." She motioned across the room. "Is that where he is?"

"Yes." John nodded after a moment. She bit her lip and looked at the closed door.

"Has- Has he said anything?"

"Some. Enough for Sayid to go and check out." He went on, and Kate looked him quizzically. "He said he was in a ballooning accident here on the island. We know that isn't true, but he's said a few other interesting things that Sayid wants to check out. He might be telling the truth this time, but-"

"But, you don't believe him." Kate said, and John shrugged.

"It could be true, but- There's something about-"

A groan from the sofa suddenly interrupted their conversation. They turned to see Jack slowly levering himself up right to sit sprawled against the cushions. His hair was stuck up in ridiculous tufts where he had been sleeping on it, and there were red lines across his cheek where the material of the sofa had pressed against his skin. He blinked slowly.

"Morning." John called.

"Hmph." Jack ruffled a hand through his hair. "Mornin'? Issit? Kate! You're up. You're looking better." She nodded and Jack rubbed both hands over his face. He hauled himself up from the sofa.

"Have you seen Sawyer this morning?" She asked the two men.

"Yes. I thought he had gone back to bed." John responded as Jack shook his head and yawned at the same time. "He isn't there?"

"No."

"Maybe he's gone back to the beach?" Jack said. He was eyeing Kate critically as he approached and she could feel another check-up coming on. She took a step back. If Sawyer was at the beach she needed to go there. The check-up could wait.

"Maybe." John said thoughtfully, distractedly. Kate could see that her questions about Henry had raised some issues for him and he was gazing thoughtfully at the store room door, scratching his chin.

"I'm going to go – to the beach." She thumbed over her shoulder as Jack moved in, a physician's gleam in his eye.

"Kate-"

"Jack, it can wait. I have to go-"

"I'll go with you. I have to check on Aaron anyway. I told Claire I would look in on him. John?" Jack waved a hand in front of John's face. "John! You'll be ok here?"

"Yes, yes." The older man nodded, still preoccupied. "Sayid will be back in an hour or so."

Kate lead the way out of the Hatch, towards the beach, towards the angry damaged man who waited there and to god knew what future.

LOSTLOSTLOSTLOST

Sawyer waited until the muffled voices stopped before making his move. Motioning Henry to stay and stay quiet Sawyer gripped the door handle, turned it without a sound and slipped outside-

Straight into Locke who was standing not a foot from the door. Sawyer baulked, almost falling backwards into the room.

"Fuck!"

"Morning." Locke said evenly, as if this was exactly where he expected Sawyer to be. "What were you doing in there?"

"None of your damn business. But he's alive if that's what you're after."

"Sayid said-"

"Fuck Sayid. He ain't the only one around here who's got the right to a little one on one time."

"What did you do?" Locke demanded, a little more forcefully.

"He can still talk."

Locke shoved passed the younger man, frustration and anger in his face, and looked into the room. Sawyer let himself be shoved, his own mind spinning and whirling. Shit. This wasn't exactly how he'd planned it out. There would be no chance to try to trick Locke into revealing the whereabouts of the guns now, but hell he was nothing if not adaptable. So when Locke turned back around Sawyer hit him – hard. And the man went down without a sound.

"Sorry about that Hoss." Sawyer muttered, stooping quickly to feel for a pulse. It was there and strong and steady. You fucking pain in the ass, Sawyer glared at Locke's face. Too fucking smart for your own good.

"What did you do?" A small voice came from inside the room.

"You know, I'm about sick of folks asking me that question." He glared up at Henry as he grabbed at Locke's arms and pulled. "Come on then. Help me get him in there. We got about an hour to put some serious distance between us and one angry fucking Iraqi."

END CHAPTER 10

OK, so this is where I got up to when I wrote this originally. If you want me to continue, I'll have to get some motivating reviews or follows and the like. Hope to hear from you.


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